One of the most attractive and fascinating birds to visit our feeders is the Northern flicker. They’re big and handsomely marked. When a flicker lands on the feeder, it gets your immediate attention.

What a thrill to look out onto a cold, brown, winter landscape and catch a glimpse of red flit by the window. Grabbing a copy of “The Audubon Society’s Field Guide to North American Birds, Western ...

Claim to fame: In birding circles, the northern flicker has a unique claim to fame: It’s the only woodpecker that does most of its feeding on the ground when ants and other insects are available.

The flicker is both a common and conspicuous species here, but it remains a bird of mystery. Only one species draws brings more telephone calls and emails, and that is the bald eagle. The eagle brings ...

Despite the obvious visual differences between the Red-shafted Flicker of the west and the Yellow-shafted Flicker of the east, scientists have never before found genetic differences between them. A ...

Bill Stickler took this photo of a female red-shafted northern flicker landing on top of a fir tree in Spokane Valley on Jan. 22. Web extra: Submit your own outdoors-related photographs for a chance ...

When the grass in the meadow just east of my home is short, I sometimes see a brown bird on the ground. When the bird is facing away from me, the back and wings look brown with black bars. When it ...

While many of our region’s colorful birds fly south for the cold months, resident woodpeckers offer a reliable contrast to this season’s monochrome palette. A pileated woodpecker’s blazing crest and ...

“For the past week I have watched an unusual bird feeding in my yard,” reads an e-mail from a Center Valley-area resident. “I have a small bird book and as close as I can tell it is a yellow-shafted ...

For the yellow-shafted northern flicker, “you are what you eat” has proven freakishly true. These eastern North American woodpeckers get their name from a thin vein of yellow that runs through the ...