wedged between branches competing to be the new leader, awkwardly climbing from one stumped trunk to the next. I'd seen flickers all my life, but almost always in leaving, white rump flashing between ...

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.

If there’s one species that changed the American world of birds, it’s the yellow-shafted flicker. As recently as the 1920s, birdwatching was largely done with shotguns rather than binoculars.