Of all Minnesota’s woodpecker species, flickers are among the most striking looking woodpecker. These two seasonal resident woodpeckers leave behind woodpecker relatives that stay put-downy, hairy, pileated, and red-bellied woodpeckers are here year around, to name some. Obviously, when the annual freeze occurs and frozen sod is covered by snow and ice, finding ants and other insect goodies becomes difficult if not impossible, so flickers, like yellow-bellied sapsuckers, migrate southerly until more suitable conditions are encountered for finding food. Once a treasure-trove of ants is discovered, flickers use their long barbed tongues to lick ’em up. Unlike all other North American woodpeckers that do most of their hunting for food by cascading up and down the trunks and limbs of trees, flickers are more content, probably more adapted, at digging into the soil with their chisel-like bills to unearth ants and other insects to eat. And what are they looking for? You’re right if you guessed insects, but specifically it’s mostly ants that flickers are hunting for. That is, hopping about our backyards and other short-grass clearings searching for food.
And you might have also noticed when observing flickers that they spend a considerable amount of time on the ground behaving much like American robins do. You may have already noticed that flocks of flickers have begun gathering together as they prepare to migrate. Indeed, we won’t see a flicker hopping around on a snow bank or noisily crying out their steady, strong, and familiar call in the dead of winter. While northern flickers do find Minnesota to their liking, we only get to observe this special species during the season-of-plenty. Vocal and energetic, flickers can be observed gathering together in tight-knit groups as they fly about in treetops and forage on the ground. Yet - unlike hummingbirds - they’re still here, but not for much longer. Northern flickers, one of our most unique species of woodpecker, are flocking and getting restless to depart on their migration to warmer climates in the southern United States.
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