Colaptes auratus
Order Piciformes
Family Picidae
Subfamily Picinae
Other names: Golden-winged Woodpecker
♂ Adult male.— Head grayish-brown, a scarlet band across nape of neck; back brown, barred with black; wings and tail black; shafts and under sides of wings and tail-feathers golden-yellow; rump white; throat pinkish-brown; line along side of throat and band across upper breast black; rest of under parts buffy, marked with round black spots.
♀ Adult female.— Similar, but without the black line along the side of the throat.
Nest, in a hole in a dead limb.
Eggs, white.
Near the sea-coast, from Massachusetts southward, and in the lower Hudson Valley, the Flicker is not uncommon in winter. In the rest of New England it is only a summer resident, common everywhere except in the northern heavily-forested regions. The migrants return in March or April, and are then extremely noisy; their loud wick wick wick wick is one of the characteristic sounds of a bright spring morning. This is generally the cry of the male only, who also delivers at this season a tattoo on a resonant limb, which may often be heard in the pauses of the loud call.
The ordinary call-note of the Flicker is a high-pitched ti-err, often confused by beginners with the teer of the Blue Jay. The Flicker’s note is sharper, less prolonged, and has a marked downward inflection; it is, moreover, usually given but once, or repeated only after a little interval, whereas the Jay generally screams two or three times in quick succession.
When two or more birds come together, the males spread wings and tail, bowing and turning, while both sexes utter a note, like the syllables yuck’-a yuck’-a yuck’-a. At such a time the full beauty of the plumage is displayed, the large black dots on the breast, the red band on the ashy nape, the black collar on the breast, and the black mustaches of the male. Ordinarily, however, the bird looks merely brown. When uttering the long, loud call, the male often perches across a large twig or small limb, but as a rule he alights on the upright trunk of a tree after the fashion of other Woodpeckers. In spring and summer Flickers spend much time on the ground, feeding on ants; and in autumn they eat greedily of black cherries.
The eggs are laid in a hole excavated by the birds, generally in a dead limb, with a large circular opening. The same nest is often used over and over. If one raps on the trunk of a tree so occupied in May, the startled female often appears for an instant in the opening and then hurries off. At such a time, when the bird flies directly overhead, the golden under sides of the wing and tail-feathers show; ordinarily, the Flicker is readily identified by its size and peculiar flight and by the white rump, which shows as it flies from one group of trees to the next.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)