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Flicker Solutions
To the editor:
One of our members recently sent us an article that appeared in the May 16, 1985, Rappahannock News, concerning the destructive habits of flickers in pecking holes in wooden houses.
The Audubon Naturalist Society, an independent nonprofit nature education and conservation organization headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland, receives many such calls each year, so we feel somewhat ready to answer the whys and wherefores of such behavior.
Although the article did not mention the exact cause of such pecking, a variety of possibilities exists. Insects such as carpenter ants might have invaded the wood, and the flickers were just looking for an easy meal. (As the article points out, ants are a favorite food of the flicker.) An understanding homeowner might therefore use the flicker’s pecking as an early warning system to investigate possible damage by insects to his or her home.
Damaged, soft or rotted wood looks and feels like dead wood to a flicker. Might the flicker be trying to tell the homeowner that some repairs are in order?
The pecking may be part of “territorial drumming'’ during the mating season, provoked in part by the reflection of the bird in a window. It is also speculated that “housepeckers” are young, inexperienced or less competitive birds.
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