According to Nelson, this bird is abundantly distributed thruout the timbered portions of Alaska, west even to the neighborhood of Bering Straits, and it is only surprising that so few of them come straight south to winter.
Upon the eastern borders of the range of C. cafer, viz., upon the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, and southward, specimens showing mixed characters of cafer and auratus are found—in such numbers, indeed, that they were formerly given a distinctive name, Colaptes hybridus Baird. This half-breed stock is perhaps the most interesting example of hybridization in American ornithology, presenting, as it does, not the familiar border-line of types being differentiated by varying environment, but the re-amalgamation of related types, differentiated ages ago from a common stock, presumably in Mexico.
No. 178.
RED-SHAFTED FLICKER.
A. O. U. No. 413. Colaptes mexicanus collaris (Vigors).
Synonyms.—Red-winged Woodpecker. High-holder. “Yellow-hammer.” Pigeon Woodpecker.
Description.—Adult male: Similar to C. auratus luteus, but yellow of feather-shafts, etc., replaced by orange-vermillion; cast of upper plumage correspondingly reddish (very faintly, a mere vinaceous tinge to the brown); no scarlet nuchal patch; a broad malar stripe of scarlet (replacing the black stripe of C. a. luteus); sides of head and throat clear bluish ash; underparts tinged with lilaceous. Adult female: Like male but scarlet malar stripe replaced by brown. Between this and Colaptes auratus luteus every form of gradation exists. Hybrids (for such they really are) most frequently reveal themselves by the presence of three scarlet patches (in the male), i. e., two malar and one nuchal. Length: averaging larger than C. a. luteus, up to 14.00 (355.6); wing 6.90 (175.3); tail 5.00 (127); bill 1.50 (38.1).
Recognition Marks.—Little Hawk size; brown finely barred with black above; underparts heavily spotted with black; flame-color of under wing surface prominent in flight; scarlet malar stripe of male distinctive; lighter than succeeding.
Nesting.—Much as in C. a. luteus, and eggs indistinguishable. For nesting sites makes use of wooden buildings or earth-banks in default of trees. Season: May; one brood, rarely two.
General Range.—Western United States and British Columbia from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific and south into northern Mexico, giving place to succeeding form on northwest coast slopes, to C. chrysoides in extreme southwest, and hybridizing with C. auratus luteus in northeastern and northern portion of range.
Range in Washington.—East-side, common summer resident and migrant, found to timber-line in the Cascades, where shading into next; partially resident in winter.
Authorities.—[Lewis and Clark, Hist. Ex. (1814) Ed. Biddle: Coues, Vol. II., p. 185]? C. cafer, Allen, B. N. O. C. VI. (1881), p. 128. (T). L¹.(?) D¹. Sr. D². Ss¹. Ss². J. B.
Specimens.—(U. of W.) P¹. Prov. B. BN.
Nature has not dealt justly with the East-side Flicker in the matter of providing an abundance of dead timber for nesting sites. What more natural, then, than that the stinted bird should joyfully fall upon the first “frame” houses and riddle them with holes? The front door of a certain country parsonage near North Yakima testifies to at least one pastoral vacation, by the presence of three large Flicker holes in its panels. The church hard by is dotted with tin patches which conceal this bird’s handiwork; and the mind recalls with glee how the irreverent Flicker on a summer Sunday replied to the parson’s fifthly, by a mighty rat-at-at-at-at on the weather siding. The district schoolhouse of a neighboring township is worst served of all, for forty-one Flicker holes punctuate its weather-beaten sides—reason enough, surely, for teaching the young idea of that district how to shoot. Indeed, the school directors became so incensed at the conduct of these naughty fowls that they offered a bounty of ten cents a head for their destruction. But it is to laugh to see the fierce energy with which these birds of the plains, long deprived of legitimate exercise, fall to and perforate such neglected outposts of learning. The bird becomes obsessed by the idea of filling a particular wall full of holes, and no ingenuity of man can deter him. If work during union hours is discouraged, the bird returns stealthily to his task at four a. m., and chisels out a masterpiece before breakfast. If the gun speaks, and one bird falls a martyr to the sacred cause, another comes forward promptly to take his place, and there is always some patriotic Flicker to uphold the rights of academic research.
Of course the situation is much relieved in the timbered foothills and along the wooded banks of streams, where rotten stubs abound. The Flicker is at home, also, to the very limit of trees in the Cascade Mountains. Nests are ordinarily excavated late in April, and any tree or stump may serve as host. In Okanogan County I saw a Flicker’s nest in a stump only two feet high, and its eggs rested virtually upon the ground. Others occur in live willows, cottonwoods, and apple trees, as well as in dead pines—the last named occasionally at a height of sixty or seventy feet. They nest also in the walls of buildings, in which case they lug in the chips to lay on beam or sill, and so prevent the eggs from rolling. In Chelan County a nest was found in a bank of fine earth among those of a colony of Bank Swallows. True to tradition the birds had gone downward after entering this bank. Excavation proved to be such a pleasant task that they had dug a hole not only eighteen inches deep but two feet long and one wide, measured horizontally. Three cubic feet of earth these industrious birds had removed, not after the familiar pick and kick fashion of most bank delving species, but by the beakful, as Woodpeckers should.
From six to ten highly polished, semi-transparent, white eggs are laid upon the rotten wood or chips, which usually line a nest; and incubation begins customarily when the last egg is laid. Bendire notes an instance, in the Blue Mountains of Oregon, of a Flicker’s nest which contained at one time three young birds just hatched, two pipped eggs, and five perfectly fresh eggs, of which one was a runt.
Taken in Oregon. Photo by A. W. Anthony.
NEST AND EGGS OF RED-SHAFTED FLICKER.
The female is a close sitter and instances are on record where pebbles dropped in upon her have failed to dislodge her, or where once being lifted off she brushed passed the disturber to re-enter the nest. Altho provided with a bill which might prove a formidable weapon, the Flicker is of too gentle a nature to wield it in combat, and seldom offers any resistance whatever to the intruder.