The gilded flicker (''Colaptes chrysoides'') is a large-sized
woodpecker
Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions. ...
(mean length of ) of the
Sonoran,
Yuma, and eastern
Colorado Desert
California's Colorado Desert is a part of the larger Sonoran Desert. It encompasses approximately , including the heavily irrigated Coachella and Imperial valleys. It is home to many unique flora and fauna.
Geography and geology
The Colorado De ...
regions of the
southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Ne ...
and northwestern
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, including all of
Baja California
Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...
, except the extreme northwestern region. Golden-yellow underwings distinguish the gilded flicker from the
northern flicker
The northern flicker or common flicker (''Colaptes auratus'') is a medium-sized bird of the woodpecker family. It is native to most of North America, parts of Central America, Cuba, and the Cayman Islands, and is one of the few woodpecker spec ...
found within the same region, which has red underwings.
Taxonomy
Four subspecies are recognized:
* The Cape gilded flicker (''C. c. chrysoides'') resides in southern Baja California.
* The brown gilded flicker (''C. c. brunnescens'') resides in northern and central Baja California.
* Mearns' gilded flicker (''C. c. mearnsi'') resides in extreme southeastern California to Arizona and northwestern Mexico.
* The Mexican gilded flicker (''C. c. tenebrosus'') resides in northwestern Mexico from northern Sonora to northern Sinaloa.
Habitat
The gilded flicker most frequently builds its nest hole in a
saguaro
The saguaro (, ) (''Carnegiea gigantea'') is a tree-like cactus species in the monotypic genus ''Carnegiea'' that can grow to be over tall. It is native to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, the Mexican state of Sonora, and the Whipple Mountains a ...
cactus, excavating a nest hole nearer to the top than to the ground.
The cactus defends itself against water loss into the cavity of the nesting hole by secreting sap that hardens into a waterproof structure that is known as a
saguaro boot
A saguaro boot is the hard shell of callus tissue, heavily impregnated with lignin, that a saguaro cactus (''Carnegiea gigantea'') creates to protect the wound created by a bird's nesting house . The bird pecks through the cactus skin, then excava ...
.
Northern flickers, on the other hand, nest in riparian trees and very rarely inhabit saguaros. Gilded flickers occasionally hybridize with northern flickers in the narrow zones where their ranges and habitats overlap.
References
Gallery
Image:Gilded Flicker (Colaptes chrysoides) in flight.jpg, In flight
Image:Gilded Flicker (Colaptes chrysoides) by nest hole in saguaro cactus.jpg, By a nest hole in a saguaro cactus
Further reading
* Corman, T. E., Wise-Gervais, C. ''Arizona Breeding Bird Atlas''. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. (2005) .
* ''National Geographic Society Field Guide to the Birds of North America, Third Edition''. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society. (1999) .
External links
Gilded flicker photo galleryVIREO
Photo-High ResArticle
borderland-tours
Photo-High Res
tsuru-bird.net
{{Taxonbar, from=Q596689
Gilded flicker
The gilded flicker (''Colaptes chrysoides'') is a large-sized woodpecker (mean length of ) of the Sonoran, Yuma, and eastern Colorado Desert regions of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, including all of Baja California, ex ...
Birds of Mexico
Fauna of the Sonoran Desert
Native birds of the Southwestern United States
Taxa named by Alfred Malherbe
Birds described in 1845