Red-shafted Flicker

Another Red-shafted Flicker photo, again from the Billy J. Frank Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, this one on 6 July 2020. This individual was one of an apparent family of four. The bird in the first photo is probably an adult female. Flickers are ground-feeding woodpeckers that specialize on eating ants and beetle larvae—their sticky tongues reach out as much as 4 cm beyond the tip of their bills (Wiebe and Moore 2020). In the winter, their diet includes fruit. Flickers hop short distances while they feed. I do not recall ever seeing flickers run on the ground—usually they fly between feeding sites. The young bird in the second image is running after its mother, begging to be fed. Note that, like most woodpeckers, flickers have two toes facing forward, and two face backward.