Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted or Red-shafted)

The Northern Flicker is a large, distinctive woodpecker with brownish upperparts barred with black and a white rump that is conspicuously visible in flight. Unlike many other woodpeckers, they spend a significant amount of time on the ground foraging for ants and beetles. Their undulating flight style and loud, ringing calls make them a familiar sight and sound across North America.

Distinctive black and white horizontal barring across a greyish-white background, typical of the upperparts or flanks of a Northern Flicker.

Mixed structure featuring an upper pennaceous vane with tightly interlocked barbs and a lower plumulaceous (fluffy) base with loose barbs and a rudimentary afterfeather.

Smooth and firm at the distal pennaceous tip, becoming soft, flexible, and fluffy toward the proximal base.

Distinctive black-and-white transverse barring on a grey-white background, combined with a thin, pale rachis and a fluffy basal structure.

Open woodlands, forest edges, suburban parks, yards, and areas with scattered trees or dead snags suitable for foraging and nesting.

Widespread across North America, ranging from Alaska and Canada down through the United States to central Mexico, wintering in southern regions.

Northern Flickers are a keystone cavity-excavating species. The holes they carve out each year provide crucial nesting real estate for numerous secondary cavity nesters, including bluebirds, swallows, owls, and small mammals.

Other woodpecker species such as the Red-bellied Woodpecker or Downy Woodpecker, though their back and wing patterns differ in the width and starkness of the black and white barring.

Northern Flickers have extraordinarily long, barbed tongues that can extend nearly two inches beyond the tip of their bill, specially adapted for extracting ants from underground nests.

Fair to Good condition. The feather shows some wear and separation at the plumulaceous base, but the upper pennaceous vane is mostly intact.