Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 2 · column 1 of 4 · from the scan, no model involved
This is still being argued by those who concern themselves with such.
One theory is that the name comes from the “wicka-wicka-wicka” call of the bird. This supposition has the most followers?
The other possible source for the name is the “flickering” of the bold white rump patch that all races of flickers show when they fly.
This flashing white pattern of the flicker in flight is termed a “flash pattern,” and is thought to confuse a predator — a large hawk, for instance — that is chasing a flying flicker, intent on capture for a meal. The hawk focuses on this flashing white spot, but loses his prey when the flicker, in an upward swoop, lands on a vertical tree trunk and closes its Wings over the white spot. When the white Spot disappears, the baffled hawk wonders, “Where is my meal?”
There is another possible explanation for £he white rump patch of the flicker. Some Ornithologists speculate that the patch is a signal to other flickers in a flock during ljoigration. In other words, if you are a flicker and see a flashing white rump, you know you are in the right company. [ Like other woodpeckers, the flicker is a cavity nester. Both male and female take turns excavating a hole in a partially decayed tree (or giant cactus, if they are gilded flickers). After the entrance is made, the two birds work hard Co dig out a deep, gourd-shaped cavity. J I have observed this digging. After one of the pair has finished his or her stint at carJ"
entry, the bird appears at the entrance hole nd spits wood chips. “ No nest is built. As many as eight white eggs are laid on the soft wood at the enlarged bottom of the cavity.
Generally speaking, a bird does not start the serious business of incubation — the pressing of the warm breast against the eggs
until they have a full clutch. Birds don’t seem to count so much as perceive, or feel, the full complement of eggs. ; One female flicker laid 71 eggs in 73 days in an attempt to complete her clutch. This occurred because an ornithologist removed one egg daily in his research into flicker doings.
Poor female! Besides being exhausted and discouraged, her body must have been depleted of calcium. * All this determination to lay an egg does the flicker no good when the introduced and pestiferous European starling decides he wants the cavity that a pair of flickers has laboriously excavated.
Starlings are not anatomically equipped to
95.1%