The northern flicker is a small woodpecker that inhabits most of north america. It lives in habitats with trees and it is one of the few woodpeckers to migrate during winter.Adult Flickers have a brown on the back with wings measuring 32 cm in length. Their upper breast is jet black and the lower part is a pale beige. Males are differentiated by their black or red moustache at the base of the bass of the beak.
Flickers unlike most woodpeckers eat lots of their food off the ground like ants and worms, they catch some insects in flight and some berries. But ants alone can take up 45% of their diet. This because they have a behaviour called anting, this is where they use acids from the ants to get rid of parasites.
A female flicker lays 6-8 pure white eggs, the second largest in the entire american woodpecker species! The incubation period lasts 12 days and the young leave their nest after 25-28 days.
