Larch Creek Birds

What the birds (and frogs) are saying at a creek in western Washington
Plate 10
Northern Flicker
John James Audubon, The Birds of America, 1827–38
Bird

Northern Flicker

Colaptes auratus
Woodpeckers (Picidae)
Year-round resident. Expected at the creek in every month.
Field marks
A big brown woodpecker barred on the back and spotted below, with a black bib and a white rump that flashes in flight; our western birds have salmon-red underwings.
Male & female
The male has a red moustache stripe; the female has none.
Voice
A loud, laughing 'wick-wick-wick-wick' that goes on rather longer than necessary, a single sharp 'kleer', and springtime drumming on anything resonant, including chimney caps at 6 a.m.
Diet
Ants above all, taken on the ground with a sticky tongue that unreels to 2 inches, plus beetles, berries and seeds in winter.
Habitat
Open woodland, forest edges, gardens. Feeds on the ground more than any other woodpecker, which the other woodpeckers find a bit much.
Nesting
Excavates a cavity in a dead tree; 5–8 eggs. Old flicker holes house owls, swallows and squirrels for years afterwards: the woodpecker builds the apartment block, everyone else moves in.
Size
12–14 in long, 4–5½ oz: about a baseball, if a baseball were mostly feathers and ate ants.

Northern birds move south for winter and join ours, so flickers get more numerous and louder from October.

Season how expected it is here, week by week

50%100%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecheard at the creektoday
Fig. 1. BirdNET's range model for this location: the chance this species is present in each week of the year. Orange ticks mark weeks it has actually been heard at the creek; the dashed line is today.

At the creek 133 calls on 4 days, first Oct 28, last Oct 31

224300:00 — 0 calls001:00 — 0 calls02:00 — 0 calls03:00 — 0 calls304:00 — 0 calls05:00 — 0 calls06:00 — 0 calls607:00 — 5 calls08:00 — 18 calls09:00 — 5 calls910:00 — 11 calls11:00 — 4 calls12:00 — 7 calls1213:00 — 13 calls14:00 — 2 calls15:00 — 7 calls1516:00 — 18 calls17:00 — 43 calls18:00 — 0 calls1819:00 — 0 calls20:00 — 0 calls21:00 — 0 calls2122:00 — 0 calls23:00 — 0 callssunrisesunset
Fig. 2. When it calls: all detections by hour of day (today's sunrise and sunset shown).
2754Oct 2 — 0 callsOct 3 — 0 callsOct 3Oct 4 — 0 callsOct 5 — 0 callsOct 6 — 0 callsOct 7 — 0 callsOct 8 — 0 callsOct 9 — 0 callsOct 10 — 0 callsOct 10Oct 11 — 0 callsOct 12 — 0 callsOct 13 — 0 callsOct 14 — 0 callsOct 15 — 0 callsOct 16 — 0 callsOct 17 — 0 callsOct 17Oct 18 — 0 callsOct 19 — 0 callsOct 20 — 0 callsOct 21 — 0 callsOct 22 — 0 callsOct 23 — 0 callsOct 24 — 0 callsOct 24Oct 25 — 0 callsOct 26 — 0 callsOct 27 — 0 callsOct 28 — 7 callsOct 29 — 54 callsOct 30 — 26 callsOct 31 — 46 callsOct 31
Fig. 3. Calls per day over the last 30 days.

Recordings

Clearest recording · Oct 31 4:27 pm · 98% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 31 5:46 pm · 93% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 31 5:45 pm · 86% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 31 5:45 pm · 93% sure
spectrogram

From the encyclopedia

The northern flicker or common flicker is a medium-sized bird of the woodpecker family. It is native to most of North America, parts of Central America, Cuba, and the Cayman Islands, and is one of the few woodpecker species that migrate. Over 100 common names for the northern flicker are known, including yellowhammer, clape, gaffer woodpecker, harry-wicket, heigh-ho, wake-up, walk-up, wick-up, yarrup, and gawker bird. Many of these names derive from attempts to imitate some of its calls.
From Wikipedia, "Northern flicker", CC BY-SA 4.0.