Flashy woodpecker stands out from the crowd

Most of our familiar woodpeckers spend all winter among us, but an unusual woodpecker spends the warm seasons here, then migrates away in the fall. The Northern flicker is very unlike other woodpeckers, ground-oriented instead of spending much time in trees. And they're so much handsomer than the standard issue woodpecker.

Flickers are worth a second look, and even a third, because they're so different from their black-and-white cousins, with a feather coat that looks as if it might have been designed by committee.

A flicker's back is striped in black-edged scallops on a brown background, its front dramatically speckled with black spots on cream. Its chest has a black bib and the back of its head features a vibrant red chevron, a real eye-catcher. The undersides of flicker wings are a surprising golden-yellow, due to its golden feather shafts, seen only in flight. Add a gray head and (on males) a distinctive black "mustache." Finally, there's a dramatic white patch on a flicker's back, below the wings (a.k.a., its rump), and it's this that really identifies a far-off bird as a flicker.

It takes more than one look to apprehend all the various colors and markings that make up a flicker. You've heard the name Roger Tory Peterson, the bird-watcher and illustrator who forever changed bird watching by creating easy-to-use field guides featuring colorful drawings of birds? And you've heard of a "spark" bird, the bird sighting that lights an avid interest in all birds? Well, the flicker was Peterson's spark bird, seen when he was 12 years old and it turned him on to a lifetime interest in the bird world.

All in all, this is one knockout woodpecker, more dramatic than most of its clan. And it differs in other ways from most woodpeckers, too. For one thing, it's seldom seen in trees. Flickers spend most of their time on the ground, searching for ants, their favorite food. A flicker who's found an anthill or a subterranean ant colony is one happy bird, and will probe and hammer into the soil until it's had its fill of ants.

In the fall, it's not unusual to come across large groups of flickers in open spaces and parks, evenly spaced away from each other, all digging with their beaks for ants or beetles. These are usually migration pit stops and, once satiated, the flickers will continue their southward movement.

Another way flickers differ from other woodpeckers: Males handle a larger share of parenting duties than females do, spending more time incubating the pair's eggs and bringing food to nestlings. And with a typical brood numbering seven eggs, this can be a big job.

You might assume that flickers were named for some body movement, such as flicking its tail, but that isn't the case. Instead, the official story is this woodpecker is named for its distinctive call, a loud "wicka, wicka, wicka" (hear it here: www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Flicker/sounds)

They're larger than many other birds we see in backyards and parks, running about 12 ½ inches from beak to tail, a bit larger than a blue jay. I've seen some fairly intense beak-sparring between flickers and blue jays competing for feeders and birdbath. And I've observed some dramatic battles between flickers and red-bellied woodpeckers, apparently competing for the same tree hole to hold a nest.

Flickers depart by the end of autumn (although a few remain all winter), before snows cover up their main food source, but they'll be back in spring, making that daffy "wicka, wicka" sound as they start the breeding season once again.

St. Paul resident Val Cunningham, who volunteers with the St. Paul Audubon Society and writes about nature for local, regional and national newspapers and magazines, can be reached at valwrites@comcast.net