Birds
Flicker
Colaptes spp. · also called flickers
A flicker hops across an open lawn, pausing to drive its long, barbed tongue deep into an ant nest rather than drilling into the nearest tree trunk. Every other woodpecker sharing its forest edge habitat is doing something quite different right now.
Overview
Flickers, genus Colaptes, are ground-foraging woodpeckers found across forest and open habitat throughout the Americas. Their ant-heavy diet and unusual preference for foraging on open ground set them apart from the bark-drilling behaviour typical of most other woodpecker species.
A woodpecker that left the trees
While it keeps the climbing feet and drumming displays of its woodpecker relatives, the flicker has shifted its actual foraging strategy to the ground entirely, a genuine behavioural departure built around one specific, abundant food source: ants.
Status
Least Concern — widespread across suitable forest and open habitat throughout the Americas, with some regional declines linked to nesting cavity competition.
Flicker: common questions
Why does the flicker forage on the ground instead of tree bark?
Unlike most woodpecker species, which forage mainly by drilling into tree bark, a flicker spends much of its time foraging on open ground specifically because its diet relies heavily on ants, which are more efficiently extracted from underground nests using the flicker's unusually long, barbed tongue than from bark crevices.
Does a flicker still have the same feet as other woodpeckers?
Yes, despite its ground-foraging habits, a flicker retains the zygodactyl foot arrangement, with two toes pointing forward and two back, typical of woodpeckers generally, an adaptation more commonly associated with climbing tree trunks but retained by the flicker regardless of its different foraging style.
Why do flickers sometimes drum on metal objects like gutters?
A male flicker performs a loud, rapid drumming display against resonant surfaces such as dead tree limbs to establish territory and attract mates, and because metal objects like gutters or chimney caps can produce an even louder, more resonant sound, some flickers opportunistically use these human-made surfaces instead.
How can you identify a flicker in flight?
A flicker typically displays a distinctive white rump patch that becomes clearly visible in flight, a helpful field marking that distinguishes it from other similarly sized woodpecker species when seen only briefly overhead, particularly useful given how much time flickers spend flying between ground-foraging sites.