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.

Flickers Again

Last year, at about this same time, I had a family of Common Flickers take a keen interest in my woodpecker tree. They spent hours searching the tree for tasty morsels and then were gone. I haven’t seen flickers in the tree since then, at least until now. Just as before, a family of Flickers has come to glean what they can from the rotting wood of my woodpecker tree.

The tree has lost a lot of bark since last year, but there still seems to be plenty of insects to find. I never could see what they were eating. Some food was pulled from beneath the bark and some seemed to be deeper into the rotting wood.

Flickers are such wonderfully colored birds. I love seeing them and having them in the tree makes for the best viewing. I just wonder why I don’t see them here at other times of the year. They’re around, but they spend their time foraging on the ground where it’s hard to see all of their pretty markings.

The entire family visited this particular crotch between two divergent limbs. It must be a place of abundance or else there’s something particularly tasty in there that’s terribly difficult to dig out.

The woodpecker tree continues to decompose, but the major trunks are still standing. Most of the bark has disappeared and the outer few inches of wood is getting really soft. Prior to the drought, there were several plants that sprouted from stored seeds in the trunks and a proliferation of fungus fruiting bodies. I would expect the tree to last for only a few more years. When it finally falls, I plan to use the parts to create some more lizard habitat around the barn.

Flickers

I’ve had a family group of Common Flickers hanging around for a couple of weeks. They’ve been making extensive use of my woodpecker tree. Here’s an adult male. The black bib is displayed by both sexes. The black area extending from the base of the bill is a male characteristic often described as a mustache. Looks more like a try at mutton chops to me.

Small bib, poorly developed facial hair and fuzz-ball head distinguish this as a young male. Flickers seem to enjoy posing for the camera.

The female has no black facial markings. Otherwise, she looks like the male. Flickers spend a lot of time foraging on the ground and this is the first time I’ve had them in a position to get some typical woodpecker poses.

They all have the traditional red woodpecker cap, as displayed by this youngster.

They seemed to be finding plenty to eat. At least they swallowed a lot of things that I assumed were insects.

They were seldom still and constantly paid attention to everything going on around them. They also chattered continually and displayed quite a large vocabulary. My universal translator is out for repairs, so I don’t know what they were talking about.

Here’s a part of the woodpecker tree with three Flickers in the picture. I think the tree will provide woodpecker food for several more years.

Flicker right spent a lot of time digging for something in the saddle between these two branch stubs. Flicker left watched the excavation, but never went down to investigate.