(Image: Michael Quinton/Minden)
NORTHERN flicker sounds like something that might go wrong with your TV set in Manchester. In fact it is .
If you spotted one on a tree, you鈥檇 see a handsome bird with brown and black plumage. It鈥檚 only when they take to the air that they flash their unmistakable colours. erupting from its nest in Alaska is the yellow-shafted form of the species (Colaptes auratus), found across the east and north of the US and Canada. In the west you would see a red-shafted flicker.
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But if you meet one up close and are still unsure what bird you are looking at, wait until it sticks out its tongue. It is thought to be , up to 12 centimetres in length. Woodpeckers鈥� tongues are attached differently to other birds, curling up behind the skulls 鈥� which are themselves specialised to withstand the intense mechanical shocks caused when the birds drum against a tree trunk.
(Image: Michael Quinton/Minden)
An urban legend claims that the flicker can use its monster tongue to catch bats as they leave their roost 鈥� but given that it mostly forages on the ground for ants and beetles, we don鈥檛 believe a word of it.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淵ellow flash鈥�
