The Northern Flicker

The Norther Flicker is a common ant-eating woodpecker found in open areas and common across the U.S. Although it can climb up the trunks of trees and hammer on wood like other woodpeckers, the Northern Flicker prefers to find food on the ground. Ants are its favorite food, and the flicker digs in the dirt to find them. It uses its long barbed tongue to lap up the ants. The Northern Flicker will eat some fruit, seeds and berries as well.

Northern Flickers can be found throughout most wooded regions of North America, and they are familiar birds in most suburban environments. They need some open area and do not nest in the middle of dense forests, but they breed in most other forest types. Outside of the breeding season, they also frequent other open areas, including suburban lawns and parks, grassland, sagebrush, and even sand dunes.

Northern Flickers typically excavate nesting cavities in dead or diseased pine, cottonwood, or willow trees. Males do most of the excavation with some help from females. Both incubate the 5 to 8 eggs for about 11 days, then brood the newly hatched young for about 4 days more. Both sexes feed the young, which leave the nest after 24 to 27 days. The parents continue to feed the young once they fledge, and soon the young begin to follow the adults to foraging sites and gather their own food.

Northern Flickers play an important role in forested ecosystems by excavating nesting and roosting holes that are subsequently used by other birds, animals, and reptiles that cannot make their own.

Shop our Bird Houses
for the Northern FLicker

Offer a nesting cavity to your flickers to keep this beneficial bird in your backyard! Mount your flicker house 6 to 20 feet above ground on a mature tree for best results.

Return to
Index of All Bird Houses