Food.—The food of Mearns’s gilded flicker seems to be much like that of the other flickers, including ants and various other insects and such wild fruits and berries as are available in its territory. Dr. Grinnell (1914) reports that the stomachs of two birds, taken in the Colorado Valley, “had their gullets distended with a mass of small black ants and ant larvae.” Mr. Gilman (1915) says:
They resort regularly to the Indian corncribs and are seen in corn fields though I have never noticed them actually engaged on an ear of green corn as I have the Gilas. They probably attack the green corn but are quiet about the work instead of advertising their presence. They eat largely of the cactus fruit and possibly of the pulp at certain lean seasons. They are very fond of watermelon, and eat freely of it when it is placed on bird tables or on the ground in shade of tree or shed. They appear to feed frequently on the ground in the way the red-shafted does, and are probably after ants most of the time. I have seen them at work on an ant hill and even pecking into the ground after the insects.
Behavior.—The same writer says on this subject:
The Gilded Flickers are much quieter than the Gilas, and are not so much in evidence around homes, though they do not appear to be very timid. They are simply less sociable I presume. * * *
They are peaceable and impress me as being eminently practical and matter of fact. Each one minds his own business and seems willing to live and let live. They do not assemble in numbers as the Gilas do sometimes, but are solitary or in pairs. They have the same habit of pecking the walls of buildings as have the red-shafted flickers, and one has worked spasmodically at the shingled gable of the school house here for the past three years. I take it to be the same individual, for he is rather tame and roosts each night above one of the window casings. * * *
They are not close sitters, and usually leave the nest before the tree is reached or the ladder placed against the trunk. As soon as an intruder’s footsteps become audible the landlady pokes her head from the entrance, and soon after departs, never giving opportunity for capturing her on the nest.
Voice.—The gilded flicker apparently possesses as good a vocabulary as any other flicker, uttering practically all the varied notes common to the genus, but evidently it is not quite so noisy as its relatives. Mr. Gilman (1915) thinks that its notes are “not so frequent nor quite so loud” as those of the red-shafted flicker.
Field marks.—The gilded flicker can be recognized easily as a flicker by the characteristic markings of the genus, by its flight and by its voice. It looks like an eastern flicker with a red malar patch (in the male) instead of a black one, and with no red crescent on the nape in either sex. It looks like a pale red-shafted flicker with yellow, instead of red, in the wings and tail. Its smaller size is hardly noticeable in the field.