Ant Mound Flicker Droppings

January 31 high temperatures made it into the mid 60’s, so I decided to check out some ant mounds to see if there were any ants moving about.  There was no ant activity, but I did notice several holes left by a foraging Flicker.  Flickers on the ant mounds are a regular occurrence.

Flicker holes are usually narrow and deep.  I imagine they get their bill down the hole and then fish for ants with their tongue.  I remembered the comment made last week by James Trager about Flickers leaving droppings full of ant exoskeletons on the mound and began to search for similar droppings here.

No ants in this rather loose dropping.  I was wondering if the snail shell was already in place before arrival of the dropping or if it actually went through the bird.

This is what I was looking for.  There’s a lot of material packed into this little nugget.

Here’s a neat ant exoskeleton looking like it just took a trip through a trash compactor.  That’s pretty good evidence that the birds are actually feeding on ants.

Crumbling the dropping reveals a great assortment of ant parts.

Mixed in with the ants were many Eastern Red Cedar seeds.  Apparently the Flickers have also been feeding on the cedar fruits.  Thanks for the tip James.  It made for an interesting investigation.