“It was about this high,” the earnest fellow declared as he held his hands about 3 feet apart. “It was brownish and had speckles all over. The head was all red with a lighter throat. Oh yes, it had a long beak too – something like a woodpecker beak.”  For a brief moment I entertained thoughts that maybe a specimen of the incredibly rare Red-headed Pixal Crane had landed in town and that the observer had truly described to me the find of the ages.  Just in case, I probed.

  I questioned the size again and found that the bird had shrunk in size over the last few seconds. It now vacillated between 20 -24 inches high. “It was up on a hill, so it may have looked bigger than it really was,” the man admitted.  I held my hands about a foot apart and asked if it could have been that size. “I suppose,” he said.  When asked about color and anything else that might have been distinctive he repeated his “brownish and speckled” theme and emphasized the long beak. “The red was more on the back of his head, now that I think about it.”

  I asked him if it was on the ground.  He said yes, but up on a hill.  Speckled? Yes. Long beak? Yes, like a woodpecker. Red on head?  Some, a little on the back of the head. Sad that ornithological history had not been made on this day, I concluded that he saw a Northern Flicker – a large type of woodpecker. “But aren’t woodpeckers supposed to live in trees?” he asked justifiably. “Yes, but this one spends a lot of time on the ground. They like to eat ants.” I almost added that “ants live on hills and that everything looks big next to them,” but bit my lip.

  When I go into a hardware store and try to describe what I want, I bumble over the proper descriptive words – resorting to words like “thingy” and “flange” (I like the word flange because it sounds so hardwaredy). I am to the hardware guy what this visitor is to me, so it is not in my place to condemn his exaggerations and in-exactitudes.

  I am used to people coming up to me and wanting a tight identification after telling me they saw “a little brown bird with no marks.”  I may attempt an answer and ask about the presence of a flange or something, but have to admit ignorance.  In answering the Flicker question, however, I found myself shaking my head and re-analyzing my view of this common bird.  The more you think about it, it is an odd bird even when described correctly. A woodpecker that wants to be an anteater is like an elf wanting to be a dentist in an animated Christmas special. This is a woodpecker that is always looks down to earth.

  Take a look at the picture above and you’ll see the species in question. Note that it is sitting on the ground, that it is heavily speckled, that it has a long woodpecker bill, and that it is looking down. You can’t see the back of the head in this view, so take my word that it is purplish with a bright heart-shaped red spot in the middle.  On the throat you’ll see a distinctive black crescent mark that looks like a gorget worn around the neck.

  The most distinctive field mark of the Northern Flicker is a bright white rump patch. This feature shines out like a beacon when the bird is seen from behind as it flies away. When the thing is up on a hill this field mark is impossible to see (wink, wink).

  As a card carrying member of the woodpecker family the Flicker has a fine woodpecker-like chisel bill. It even uses this bill to excavate nest holes and tap out syncopated rap music. It can feed on wood boring insects, but has a decided taste for ant meat.  Most ants live on the ground, so the flicker must descend earthward for feasting. Here is where the bird actually shows some adaptive flare (or is it an adaptive flange?).

  Hidden within that impressive beak is an even more impressive tongue.  The tongue measures about 5 inches in length.  It is, according to one reference, one of the longest tongues to be found in nature. This is a proportional reference, not a literal one, but I think an inaccurate one. I happen to know of another creature with a much longer proportional tongue, but I’ll divulge that one next time. Let’s just say that the Flicker tongue is a fine piece of tonguage. This organ is so long, in fact, that it curls around the back of the head and anchors in the nostrils.

  All woodpeckers have long tongues covered with barbs in order to harpoon their tunnel dwelling prey. Flickers differ in having a smoother tongue that is covered instead with sticky saliva.  This is the same weapon of choice that is employed by mammalian anteaters such as Aardvarks, Pangolins, and Giant South American Anteaters. These guys are pros and the Flicker can keep up with the best of ‘em. Employing that long sticky tongue, the bird laps up ants like candy- angling their heads low to the ground and flicking the tongue like a snapped towel.

  As far as I know, the name Flicker stems from their maniacal laughter-like call, but once you’ve seen one flick’n away at an ant hill, you’ll be convinced that this is real reason behind the name.