One of the most attractive and fascinating birds to visit our feeders is the Northern flicker. They’re big and handsomely marked. When a flicker lands on the feeder, it gets your immediate attention.

“For the past week I have watched an unusual bird feeding in my yard,” reads an e-mail from a Center Valley-area resident. “I have a small bird book and as close as I can tell it is a yellow-shafted ...

For the yellow-shafted northern flicker, “you are what you eat” has proven freakishly true. These eastern North American woodpeckers get their name from a thin vein of yellow that runs through the ...

From my living room window the other day, I spied a large brownish bird with a striking white rump hopping about and pecking at something on my lawn. I recognized it immediately -- a Northern flicker, ...

When the grass in the meadow just east of my home is short, I sometimes see a brown bird on the ground. When the bird is facing away from me, the back and wings look brown with black bars. When it ...

A woodpecker by any other name is … a flicker. Flickers are members of the Picidae family, which also includes sapsuckers. Birds of this family use their chiseled bills to bore into trees. Sapsuckers ...

What a thrill to look out onto a cold, brown, winter landscape and catch a glimpse of red flit by the window. Grabbing a copy of “The Audubon Society’s Field Guide to North American Birds, Western ...

The flicker is both a common and conspicuous species here, but it remains a bird of mystery. Only one species draws brings more telephone calls and emails, and that is the bald eagle. The eagle brings ...

We have received several messages lately with pictures of this beautiful bird, asking for assistance with identification. The pictures invariably show a Northern flicker on the ground, not the ...