RED-SHAFTED FLICKER. Colaptes cafer collaris Vigors

Field characters.—Larger than robin; of woodpecker structure and general habits, save that it does much of its foraging on the ground. In flight shows large white rump patch and flash of dull red from wings and tail. (Sec pl. 5h). General color above brownish, with narrow bars of black; beneath grayish with numerous sharp polka dots of black and a black crescentic bar across breast. Males have bright red patches at corners of mouth. Flight strong and direct, with quick but infrequent wing-beats. Voice: Varied; the most usual note a loud, explosive claip; in spring and early summer, a loud rolling kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk, etc., repeated at length on one pitch and hence of monotonous though reverberating quality. When two flickers meet, either one, or both, utter a yuck'-a-yuck'-a-yuck'-a, or wee'-chuck, wee'-chuck, wee'-chuck, reminding one of the sound produced in whetting a scythe. Occasionally drums a rolling tattoo with bill on resonant wood.

Occurrence.—Widely distributed apparently without regard for zonal boundaries; in summer and fall up to timber line, as at 10,200 feet near Parsons Peak, 10,500 feet in Mono Pass, and 10,600 feet, in the pass at the head of Warren Fork of Leevining Creek. Very probably nests from near these limits down throughout all the forested country to the bed of the San Joaquin Valley. Occupied nesting holes in tree trunks, young just out of nest, or adults feeding young, observed at Snelling, near Lagrange, at Pleasant Valley, Buckhorn Peak, Merced Grove, Yosemite Valley, and Farrington's Ranch near Mono Lake. In winter, descends to the region below the level of heavy snows. Highest winter stations: 5100 feet, near Columbia Point, and 4200 feet, in Tenaya Cañon two miles above Mirror Lake.

The tramper in almost any part of the Yosemite region can hardly fail to at least hear one or more Red-shafted Flickers in a half-day's circuit. Although these birds are never seen in true flocks, he may flush from favorable places as many as 6 of them within a few yards. This is particularly true on the floor of Yosemite Valley during the autumn months. This omnivorous woodpecker then almost completely forsakes the timber and forages in the brush patches, eating berries of various sorts, especially cascara; it often seeks the open meadows where it gathers ants and grasshoppers.

The birds flush one or two at a time, often not until the observer is almost upon them; then the sudden flapping of broad pinkish-red wings, the view of the white rump patch fully displayed, leave no doubt in the observer's mind as to the identity. A bird seldom flies far before alighting, not against an upright tree trunk as with most other woodpeckers, but perching on a branch, to bow deeply this way and that and perhaps utter its explosive claip.

In a dead upright stub of a black oak near Stoneman Bridge, in Yosemite Valley, a nest of the Red-shafted Flicker was seen on May 17, 1919. The male bird was foraging actively in the near vicinity and was seen to return to the nest hole, his bill laden with insects for the young. The nest hole was about 25 feet above the ground.

At Coulterville on June 7, 1915, two members of our party engaged in a search for bats in the attics of the larger buildings in town. In one building a persistent series of fine, high-pitched notes was heard for some time and believed to be made by bats, but when we actually located the source it proved to be a brood of quite young Red-shafted Flickers in a nest near the cornice of the building. The young were lodged on a cross-piece in the wall, and an entrance hole, 2 inches or more in diameter, had been cut in one of the boards of the outer wall.