Rat a tat! Rat a tat! Flickers bang their sturdy beaks so rapidly on metal stove pipes, power poles, or just about any good sounding board, that they sound like drummers on staccato. One way to find these hefty members of the woodpecker family is to listen for drumming or loud calls like ca-ca-ca-ca-ca and klee-yer, klee-yer, klee-yer. In the wild, flickers live in the woods and drum on trees to advertise for mates. They are common in Moscow, too, because of our big trees and our supply of flickers’ favorite meal, ants.

Ants?

The other day I heard a loud pecking sound outside my window. There on a railroad tie at the garden edge was a flicker, close enough for me to spot the red cheek stripe or “mustache” of an adult male. He was probing holes in the wooden tie, next to the anthill site under a forsythia.

All woodpeckers have strong feet and claws for climbing, and stiff tails for propping against vertical surfaces. They also have very long sticky tongues for extracting insects, and heavy skulls to cushion their jack-hammering inclinations.

Flickers distinguish themselves by spending the most time hopping on the ground to find and eat ants. (They also eat a few other insects, and berries). They are large and brown with a black bib and black chest dots. In flight they flash a bright white rump patch and red-orange feathers under tail and wings.

The little ants we see along sidewalk cracks, or scurrying over bare mounds in the garden, supply food for Moscow’s flickers. Likewise, Moscow’s trees—and wooden structures—serve as nurseries for their families. Flickers use their long strong beaks to chip out big holes in wood and are called “cavity-nesters” and “primary cavity excavators.” Males choose the hole site then dig away for about 2 weeks. Females help. When the pouch-like hole is a foot deep (or even three feet!), Madame Flicker lays 5-8 white eggs. Male and female take turns sitting for about 2 weeks. After the eggs hatch, both parents share the work of feeding the hungry, squawking nestlings for about 2 more weeks until they’re ready to fly and gradually feed themselves. Since flickers don’t migrate south for the winter, the new little flickers can settle into the neighborhood.

Newborn birds that depend on their parents are called “altricial,” a term for blind, naked and helpless. Woodpeckers arrive this way, and so do most songbirds. The opposite plan, where tiny newborn hatchlings are downy and mobile and can even look for food, is “precocial,” as in baby chickens, ducks or geese.

The large holes that flickers carve each spring are left vacant once the family leaves the nest, but are not unused. Many birds and animals, like bluebirds and chickadees, move into these ready-made homes. Smaller owls, hawks, ducks, as well as forest-dwellers like fishers, marten or flying squirrels, also rely on unused cavities.

Woodpeckers play a big role in the life of forests, birds and mammals. Many species depend on them for nests and roosts. On a larger scale, forests themselves depend on woodpeckers. When populations of wood-eating beetles become very large in forests stressed by drought or fire, woodpeckers trim the numbers and help restore balance. One black-backed woodpecker can consume 13,000 beetles while raising a family.

Rat-a-tat-tat. Sometimes the flicker beat is a little too close—like on our houses and sheds. There’s not much you can do to prevent these persistent chippers except being there to scare them away, or installing metal siding. If it’s late spring and home-building season, you can try substituting a nest box filled with sawdust. But if it’s early spring and mating season, good luck. Who can outwit a determined flicker romeo, hammering away on the metal roof of an old car?

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