my house. Invariably the two females went through courtship antics
together, while the male fed on the ground nearby, apparently
completely indifferent to them. One of the females was much more active
than the other, which usually kept a stiff pose with head drawn in,
only occasionally responding with feeble head-waggings. At no time did
the active female use any other display than the head-wagging, and
there was never any suggestion of combat or intimidation.
“A year later, 1935, the flickers near my house behaved differently.
In the afternoon of April 24, the two males were singing loudly and
frequently in the woods, about an eighth of a mile away and at some
distance apart. By singing I mean, of course, the prolonged laughing
call of _wick-wick-wick_, etc. Presently they stopped singing, and one
flew toward the other, stopping about halfway. Very soon the other
joined him, and a long period of posturing and _wick-up_-ing ensued.
Both birds had the black mustaches of the male. The posturing was
the regular ‘weaving’ of the head and the fanning of the tail. The
notes, after the first at least, were much subdued in tone. There were
frequent intervals of quiet. The birds kept close together most of
the time, often with heads only two or three inches apart, or perhaps
less. They flitted about frequently, sometimes clinging to the trunk
of an oak, sometimes perched on a horizontal branch, and once or
twice they alighted on the stems of underbrush. After a long period
of posturing, they met in a momentary tilt, and presently there was
another clash after more posturing, then a third clash, and after that
they separated. The same bird was the aggressor in at least two of
the clashes. As often in such encounters, the attacked bird stood his
ground and the attacker veered off. It was very mild warfare, if it was
really serious at all.
“Two days after the bout of the two males, I saw two females engaged in
the dance in one of our pear trees. It lasted only a few minutes, and I
heard no notes. Not long after the dance of the two females a prolonged
‘sexual flight’ took place. It lasted five or ten minutes, as nearly as
I could tell, with a few short intervals of resting. I could at no time
determine the sexes of the two birds thus engaged, but occasionally a
snatch of faint song was heard (_wick-wick-wick_), and I assume that
they were male and female. They flew rather slowly and kept only a
few feet apart. It was evident that the spacing was intentional and
that the pursuer made no attempt to catch up with the other. The flight
covered a territory of several acres. It was a graceful and interesting
performance.
“I supposed at the time that this sexual flight indicated that the
affair was completed, but later that afternoon I several times saw a
male and two females together, the females posturing and _wick-up_-ing,
the male motionless. The females showed no enmity toward each other and
did not face each other, as the males of two days before did. They kept
rather farther apart. At one time a second male appeared and stayed
about for a time, but he disappeared, apparently without becoming a
serious factor in the situation.
“Three days later a pair of flickers, male and female, were feeding
peacefully together on the lawn in the morning and in the afternoon,
and I judged that the marital arrangements of at least two of my
flickers had been completed.”
More active courtship on the part of a female flicker is thus described
in some notes from Lewis O. Shelley: “On April 24, coincident with
a male flicker’s message from the elm stub, a female and a second
male appeared. All three were later in the cherry tree by our garden,
perched on branches some three feet apart. The female took the
initiative in the following activities and, perched crosswise of the
branch, often bobbed and ducked up and down, then crosswise of the
branch jerked to left, right, left, right, head cocked erect and with
tail fully spread. At times the males, less actively, did likewise, but
for the most part perched noncommittally, silent and still, giving but
few calls. At one time, after the female had displayed intermittently
several times, and when the males had been still for some five minutes,
she sidled up to the nearest male and again displayed with much
wing-fluttering and tail-spreading and sidewise twitchings; then the
same to the other male who flew when her actions of bobbing and bowing
face to face commenced. Not to be outdone, or so affronted, she flew
after him, then the second male followed.”
C. W. Leister (1919) noticed an aerial courtship evolution of the
flicker, of which he says: “When first noticed, he was about fifty
feet from the ground and ascending in peculiar, bumpy, and jerky
spirals. This was maintained until a height of about 350-400 feet was
reached, when, after a short pause, a reverse of practically the same
performance was gone through. The Flicker (_Colaptes auratus luteus_),
for as such he was identified by this time, then alighted in a cherry
tree, just above a female that we had previously failed to notice, and
completed the performance by going through his more familiar courting
antics.”
A recrudescence of the amatory instinct is sometimes seen in fall. On
September 22, 1933, a clear, warm morning, a pair of flickers, male and
female, were watched for some time as they performed their courtship
dance on the top of one of my chimneys, where there might have been
some warmth remaining from a fire that had since died out. They danced
around on all four sides of the chimney, always facing each other, both
of them bowing and swaying the head and neck, or whole body, from side
to side, with the neck extended and the bill pointing almost straight
upward. Sometimes they stopped for a few seconds, holding the upright
posture, or one performed while the other posed. There was no wing or
tail display that I could see. Lewis O. Shelley tells me that he has
seen flickers in courtship display while the young were just leaving
the nest.
_Nesting._--Soon after mating is accomplished the choice for a nesting
site is made, and often the selection is made during courtship,
especially if a nesting cavity of the previous year is to be used.
Probably the female usually makes the final decision, though there is
some evidence to indicate that in many cases the male selects the site
and persuades his mate to accept it.
Miss Althea R. Sherman (1910) made some very thorough studies of the
nesting habits of the northern flicker at National, Iowa, in some boxes
so arranged on her barn that she could observe the home life of the
birds at close range. The male and the female had been occupying two
different boxes as roosting places, and the eggs were laid in the box
occupied by the male, from which it became evident “that the male bird
chose the nesting place, and persuaded his mate to lay her eggs there,
even when she was inclined to nest elsewhere, and when she had a box
quite as good as his.”
Often the male “stakes out his claim,” so to speak, in the vicinity of
an old nest, where, during the courtship period, he utters his loud
mating call for several days, or even weeks, before the female answers
the invitation. Then, after mating is accomplished, his chosen mate may
or may not accept his choice of a nesting site. The desirability of the
nesting site may in such cases influence the female’s choice of a mate,
for she is as much interested in having a comfortable and safe home as
in choosing a handsome husband.
Having chosen the site, the pair set about repairing the old cavity or
excavating a new one, at which both birds work diligently for anywhere
from a week to three weeks, depending on the conditions they find.
Mr. Shelley tells me that, in his experience with several nests, the
nesting cavity is completed from a week to a fortnight before the eggs
are laid. The chips are usually, but not always, carried away to some
distance from the nest tree, but often chips are merely scattered about
the base of the tree. William Brewster (1936) gives the following
account of rather peculiar behavior of a flicker while excavating its
nest:
Found a Flicker at work excavating a hole in an apple-tree
in Bensen’s orchard. I was passing the tree within six feet
when I heard a low tapping, accompanied by a continuous
muffled whining sound. Turning, I at once saw the bird’s
tail projecting from the hole, which was not over five
feet above the ground. For a minute or more the pecking
and whining continued uninterruptedly, the tail wriggling
violently the while. Evidently the bird had carried in the
hole to just that point where she had less room to work
than she had had before or would have afterwards. In other
words, she had just about reached the point where the
entrance hole must begin to be expanded into a chamber and
to turn downward. It seemed to me that the whining sound
expressed rage or impatience. Perhaps it was the Flicker’s
form of swearing!
The northern flicker seems to show no very decided preference for any
one species of tree in its choice of a nesting site, though I believe
it does prefer a dead tree, or a dead stub on a living tree, or a tree
that has a soft or partially decayed heart. It has always seemed to
me that in New England we find more nests in large apple trees in old
orchards than elsewhere, the nest being excavated in the main trunk, or
large upright branch, at no great height from the ground. Such trees
may have a hard outer shell, but the interior is often more or less
soft. Old orchards are becoming scarce in my vicinity, which forces the
flickers to look elsewhere. Next in importance here as a common nesting
site is the trunk or stub of a dead white pine tree. Mr. Burns (1900)
mentions one dead pine “perforated with 25 or 30 holes, most of which
were in use at one time or another.” He lists, as favorite trees in the
Middle and Eastern States, “apple, sycamore, oak, butternut, cherry,
elm, chestnut, maple, poplar, beech, ash, pine, hickory, etc.” In
Pennsylvania, he says that J. Warren Jacobs has “found the sycamore to
be the favorite, with the apple and maple second, the beech and locust
third, oak and cherry fourth, and all other varieties fifth.”
Mr. Burns continues: “From Ohio westward the apple orchard is a
favorite with the poplar, willow, maple, oak, elm, walnut, cottonwood,
etc., more or less resorted to, according to availability. It very
seldom nests in a living coniferous tree, though it has been known to
nest in a living red cedar and in dead hemlocks and spruces.”
Telegraph, telephone, and other tall poles, as well as fenceposts,
are favorite nesting sites in the prairie regions and other parts of
the West, where trees are scarce. Frank L. Farley writes to me that
in the timbered country of northern Alberta, “where there are many
suitable nesting trees and stubs, the telephone and telegraph poles are
frequently used for nesting. These poles are usually cedar and it is
assumed that the birds prefer these for nesting, because of the ease
with which they can excavate.”
Flickers quite often nest in boxes erected for that purpose and in
buildings, much to the annoyance of the owners. I have frequently
seen nests in icehouses; these have double walls, the intervening
space being filled with sawdust; the birds drill through the outer
walls and make their nests in the sawdust. The cornices and walls
of many buildings on the farms, as well as the towers of churches
and schoolhouses, are perforated, and the eggs laid on the beams or
boarding within. Mr. Burns (1900) records the following interesting
case:
Mr. Burke H. Sinclair found a nest containing eggs in the
garret of the town high school. The birds obtained entrance
to this large three-story brick building by means of a
displaced brick. As in all infloored lofts it consists of
nothing but the parallel rafters, with attached lath and
plaster, which forms the ceiling of the room below. This
frail floor is about ten inches below the entrance hole,
and the nest was situated about one foot from and directly
in front of the entrance. The place had evidently been
used for several years, there being at least a peck of
wood chippings, some fresh, but a large quantity old and
discolored with age. The nest was placed between two of the
parallel rafters and composed of these chippings, being
about six inches thick by eighteen inches in diameter. This
material had been all cut from the rafters on the floor and
the roof overhead.
A number of other unusual nesting sites have been recorded. F. A. E.
Starr tells me of a nest that “was in an old stump two feet high; the
six eggs were on a bed of rotten wood at ground level.” Dr. Jonathan
Dwight, Jr. (1893), reports a nest that he found on Prince Edward
Island; the “nest with fully fledged young was examined in the top of
a hollow fence post. No excavation had been made by the bird, and the
young were entirely exposed to the weather.” Flickers occasionally nest
in natural cavities in trees, where no excavation is needed beyond
enlarging the opening, if necessary, or cleaning out the interior.
Ned Hollister (1918) reports that a pair of flickers and a pair of
house wrens nested in holes in an old stump in a lion’s cage in the
National Zoological Park in Washington. Mr. Burns (1900) writes: “It
has been found breeding far out on the prairie in an old wagon hub,
surrounded by weeds; also in barrels, and one instance of an excavation
of the regulation size in a hay stack is on record; another nested in
a crevice of an unused chimney for several years; and stranger yet it
has been found more than once occupying Kingfisher’s and enlarged Bank
Swallow’s burrows.”
The haystack nest is reported by Major Bendire (1895), on the authority
of William A. Bryant, of New Sharon, Iowa, as follows:
On a small hill, a quarter of a mile distant from my home,
stood a haystack which had been placed there two years
previously. The owner, during the winter of 1889-’90,
had cut the stack through the middle and hauled away
one portion, leaving the other standing with the end
smoothly trimmed. The following spring I noticed a pair
of yellow-shafted flickers about the stack showing signs
of wanting to make it a fixed habitation. One morning
a few days later I was amused at the efforts of one of
the pair. It was clinging to the perpendicular end of
the stack and throwing out chipped hay at a rate to defy
competition. This work continued for nearly a week, and
in that time the pair had excavated a cavity 20 inches in
depth. The entrance was located 8½ feet above ground, and
was 2½ inches in diameter and dug back into the stack for 6
inches, where it turned sharply downward and was slightly
enlarged at the bottom. On May 28 I took a handsome set
of seven eggs from the nest, the eggs lying on a bed of
chipped hay. The birds lingered about the stack and by June
14 had deposited another set of eggs. * * * I never could
quite understand the philosophy of their peculiar choice of
this site, as woodland is abundant here. A well-timbered
creek bottom was less than half a mile distant, while large
orchards and groves surround the place on every hand.
Kumlien and Hollister (1903) and J. A. Farley (1901) record instances
of flickers nesting on hay; in each case the birds bored a hole through
the walls of a barn and laid their eggs in a hollow in a pile of hay
near the entrance hole. William Brewster (1909) published an account
of a flicker’s nest on the open ground, found by some ladies on Cape
Cod and seen by him. Beside a sandy road, “fully a quarter of a mile
from the nearest house and bordered on both sides by dense woods of
pitch pines, the ladies found five eggs of the Flicker lying together
in a hollow in the ground within a few feet of the deeply rutted wagon
track.” The nest “was a circular, saucer-shaped depression, measuring
21¼ inches across the top, by 3 inches in depth. Dry yellowish sand
mixed with fine gravel and wholly free from vegetation of any kind,
living or dead, formed its bottom and the gently sloping sides, as well
as the surface of the level ground about it for two or three yards in
every direction, but a little further back there were weeds and grasses
growing sparingly, in slightly richer soil.” Photographs of two nests
similarly located may be seen in Bird-Lore, volume 18, page 399, and
volume 36, page 105.
Mr. Burns’s data show that the height of the nest from the ground
varies in middle and eastern States from 2 to 60 feet, and in central
western States from ground level to 90 feet. His accumulated data
on the measurements of nesting cavities show that the depth of the
excavation is “greatest in New York and New England (10 to 36 inches),
Illinois (14 to 24 inches), Pennsylvania (10 to 18 inches), and
Minnesota (9 to 18 inches).” Probably the depth of the cavity depends
on the quality of the wood and the age of the nest; when an old cavity
is used, it is usually deepened somewhat. Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1896)
gives the measurements of four Ohio nests; the total depth varied from
7 to 18 inches; the diameter of the entrance varied from 2.00 by 2.00
to 4.00 by 4.00 and averaged 2.94 by 2.72 inches. Mr. Burns (1900)
says the diameter of the cavity near the bottom varies from 4.50 to
10.00, and averages 7.67 inches. No nesting material is taken in from
outside, but enough fine chips are left in the bottom of the hole
to make a soft bed, in which the eggs are partially buried. Carl W.
Buchheister tells me that he once found a nest “the bottom of which
was 6 inches below the ground level and 12 inches below the opening, a
round hole which was 6 inches above the ground. There was but one egg.”
_Eggs._--The flicker is notorious as a prolific egg layer, but under
ordinary circumstances, when not disturbed, the average set consists of
six to eight eggs. Incubated sets of as few as three or four have been
found, sets of nine and ten are not very rare, and as many as 17 have
been found in a nest at one time; the large numbers may be products of
two females. Mr. Burns (1900) records the contents of 169 sets of the
northern flicker as 11 sets of four, 16 sets of five, 35 sets of six,
34 sets of seven, 38 sets of eight, 17 sets of nine, 13 sets of ten, 3
sets of twelve, and one each of thirteen and fourteen. Major Bendire
(1895) states that Steward Ogilby, of Staten Island, N. Y., reports
“finding a brood of not less than nineteen young Flickers in one nest,
all alive and apparently in good condition.”
If robbed of its eggs, the flicker will continue to lay new sets for a
long time. Dr. Barton W. Evermann (1889) “obtained thirty-seven eggs
in forty-nine days from a ‘yellowhammer’ which had its nest near my
house. The eggs were in seven sets, five, five, five, six, seven, four,
and five eggs respectively.” J. Parker Norris (1888) took five sets of
six eggs each from a nest in Pennsylvania between May 16 and June 18.
Several other similar cases of persistent laying have been reported,
all of which indicate that an egg is laid each day and that the birds
begin at once to replace the lost set. Mr. Burns (1900) lists a number
of such cases, where no nest egg was left to induce the bird to keep
on laying; the largest number reported was 48 eggs in 65 days. My
neighbor, Charles L. Phillips, tried the experiment of taking one egg
each day, leaving one as a nest egg; he holds the extraordinary record
of having taken 71 eggs from one nest in 73 days; the poor bird rested
only two days in the long strain of over two months.
Eggs of the flicker have sometimes been found in the nests of other
birds. In an old orchard, not far from my home, I once found a
flicker’s egg in a bluebird’s nest, with five eggs of the latter; and
in another cavity in the same tree was a tree swallow’s nest containing
five eggs of the swallow and an egg of the flicker. As this was in a
remote locality, it is hardly likely that the eggs were placed there
artificially, and the chances are that the flicker’s nest had been
destroyed and she was forced to lay in the nearest available cavity.
Mr. Burns (1900) says: “A similar instance is recorded by E. G. Elliot,
Bradford, Mass., May 16th, ’84, of a set of five eggs of bluebird
and one of flicker, nest of grass and feathers. Records of European
house sparrow and red-headed woodpecker eggs in freshly excavated
quarters with one or more eggs of the Flicker are not uncommon, and
upon investigation the latter proved to be the aggrieved party in every
instance.” He also tells of a flicker that laid an egg in a mourning
dove’s nest.
The eggs of the flicker are pure lustrous white, with a brilliant
gloss; the shell is translucent, and, when fresh, the yolk shows
through it, suffusing the egg with a delicate pinkish glow, which is
very beautiful.
The shape is quite variable, but the majority are ovate; some are
short-ovate or elliptical-ovate, some nearly oval, and some rarely
somewhat pointed. The measurements of 57 eggs average 26.85 by 20.58
millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =30.48= by
22.86, 28.19 by =24.38=, =24.45= by 21.34, and 27.68 by =19.05=
millimeters.
_Young._--The period of incubation of the flicker has been said to
be from 14 to 16 days. Miss Sherman’s (1910) careful observations on
marked eggs, laid on known dates, indicate a shorter period. From
some former nests she had learned “that sometimes the eggs hatched
in nine days, but more frequently in ten days after the laying of
the last egg.” In these cases, incubation may have begun before the
set was complete, or the eggs may have received some heat from the
body of the male, for she said that, in at least one case, “while the
eggs were being laid, and before incubation began the male roosted in
the box with the eggs.” According to a later observation, “the exact
time for incubation had been twelve days, three hours and fifty-two
minutes. The seventh egg hatched four hours later making its period of
incubation eleven days and eight hours nearly.” After another similar
experience with the hatching of nine marked eggs, which extended over a
period from 5:40 a. m. one day until 10:48 a. m. the next day, she says:
“Roughly speaking, then, the time that our Flickers take for incubation
is from eleven to twelve days.”
Her observations showed that the duties of incubation are shared by
both sexes, that the male usually incubates during the night, but “by
day the duties of incubation seem to be shared about equally between
the two birds, who are close sitters, the eggs seldom being found
alone. Of the length of the sittings no adequate record has been kept,
but those lasting from one hour and a half to two hours have been
noted.”
Miss Sherman (1910) noted that “the usual time for depositing the eggs
in the nest appears to be the hour between five and six o’clock in the
morning,” though in one case an egg was laid between 11 a. m. and
4 p. m.
Some of her observations on the young follow:
Until the young are about eleven days old, they lie in a
circle in the nest, their long necks stretched over each
other, then for nearly a week they press against the side
of the nest. At seventeen or eighteen days of age, their
claws having acquired a needlelike sharpness, they begin
to cling to the wall of the nest, and when three weeks old
they are able to climb to the hole and be fed while the
parent hangs outside.
Although the eyes of the nestlings are not open until
they are ten days old yet these organs are by no means
dormant. An easy proof of this is made by placing the hand
noiselessly over the entrance hole when they are no more
than three or four days old, and are lying apparently
asleep; up comes every head and they beg for food, getting
none they soon sleep, when the experiment may be repeated,
gaining from the young the same response that is given when
a parent darkens the hole.