Evening star., 1945-08-21
This and That
Bu Charles E. TraceueU.

The flicker family has not been a
but one day recently it flew in. and
for time put on a nice show
The two old birds were accompanied
by two babies. They new down to the
feeding place, remained while, then
darted of around the garage.
AS the young few, great deal of
white showed, reminding one Of aerial
cottontails.
The flicker is the large brown bird
with the red at the back of its neck
and black under its throat.
1t is great ant eater often visiting
sidewalks and trees and lawns Tor this
purpose.
Its odd tongue makes 1t ideally suited
for this work. The bird, in fact. is the
best ant eater Of all our songsters, large
or small.
Often it may be seen working along a
crack in the sidewalk where ants have
gathered, and in which they try to hide
when the flicker gets after them.
1t is all in vain.
That sticky tongue pulls them out
The bird often devotes its time to any
hills in lawns, and to catching them
in the crevices of bark of trees.
In these places it does good sanitary
job. Its food habits, in relation to
mans desire, are all good. Many HARM
full species of insects are taken. Prob
ably the only bad habit it has is SOW
ing poison ivy seed, but this is some
thing which cannot be helped. 1t is q
habit it shares with many birds.
Few birds have been given more COM
mon names by the people in various
parts of the country. Some OF them
are golden winged woodpecker, yellow
shafted woodpecker, pigeon woodpeck-
er, clape, yellow hammer, high-hole.
yarrup, wake-up, heigh-ho, wick-up,
hairy wicket. yawker bird, walk-up.
Probably winged woodpecker is
the best Of them ALL
friendly bird, despite its size, 1t
gets along we'll with all the summer
visitors in the suburban yard. showing
a particular fondness for robins and
English sparrows.
1t will nest in hollow tree or dead
limb, or even in box put out for it.
One season, after a particularly hard
winter, pair nested in a dead Lom-
bardy poplar, which they dug out in
best woodpecker fashion.
Before the eggs could be laid, how
ever, band of starlings descended
upon them, and finally drove them
away. 1t should be said that the re-
sulting startling family gave as much
amusement to watchers as the flicker
ever could
The starlings in this case showed
the intelligence in getting what they
wanted which is mark OF their tribe.
The male flicker at first fought back,
and drove the starlings away Then
the female flicker would fly in. At
this point second startling would ar
rive, and begin to poster the female
flicker until her mate drove it away.
We watched this affair closely, and
made sure that each time it was a
different startling. Thus the tiring
f1ickers always had a fresh enemy to
contact. Surely this was natural wis
dom of the highest order, and it worked
beautifully, since finally the flickers be-
came tired and few away, leaving the
nesting site to the aggressors.
Flickers lay from to 9 white eggs,
sometimes in a neat depression in the
ground. AS the bird turns on such a
nest she sweeps a clean circle with her
tail.
A box to attract flickers is made as
follows: Floor, by inches; depth of
box, Is to 18 inches; diameter of en-
trance hole. 3 inches; height of hole
above floor, IA to 16 inches
Such box, best of wood with the
bark on, should be placed from 8 to 20
feet above the ground on the trunk of
large tree. A handful of shavings of
sawdust may be placed in the box. This
box also suits squirrels, 30 the donor
should not begrudge them his handi-
work If they take it.
Any strange persistently repeated bird
cries In the neighborhood probably are
from hickers, since at times they seem
to specialize on odd sounds, vieing with
the bluejay in noise making.