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in other birds. Spongy, shockabsorbing tissues connect these flexible joints, strong neck muscles provide force for drilling and bristly feathers shield the nostrils from dust and wood chips.
These birds have definite economic importance. They do punch holes in trees, but rarely in healthy ones. By stripping the bark from a dead or dying tree and cleaning up the resident woodborers or carpenter ants, they prevent these pests from spreading to nearby healthy trees.
However, flickers have a less chisel-like bill than other woodpeckers, this prevents them from getting to wood boring insects. Although it climbs trees like most species of woodpeckers, flickers often feed on the ground or pick insects off tree trunks and branches.
When on the ground, the flicker searches for insects, fallen fruits, seeds and above all for ants, of which it consumes more than any other North American bird. In fall, and winter, they eat poison ivy fruits, berries, corn, and sumac seeds.
I often see flickers in my Flint Hill backyard, visiting the suet feeders.
They will readily eat from a hanging suet cage or a platform feeder, staying for a good portion of the day. They will also play cleanup, eating spilled seed or corn off the ground.
The flicker still uses trees for nesting, of course, but has also adapted well to farmlands, parks, and other more open habitats, where it may burrow into fence posts, sides of a barn or under the eaves of houses.
Flickers are often noted for
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