How to Mount a Flicker Birdhouse to a Tree

The strikingly patterned woodpeckers called flickers nest in tree cavities.

Flashy, widespread and bold-voiced, the northern flicker is one of America’s most conspicuous woodpeckers. Unlike many others of its kind, which hammer into the trunks of trees to access bark-living invertebrates, flickers spend much of their time on the ground, lapping up their favored prey, ants, with an impressive tongue. These handsome birds do share with their relatives a predilection for nesting in tree cavities, so homeowners wishing to attract a breeding pair should strategize their birdhouse accordingly.

Things You'll Need

• Flicker nest box
• Sawdust

Instructions

1. Prepare the nest box. You can always experiment with your own design, but a few general guidelines can improve the chances it will actually be used. The U.S. Geological Survey’s Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center suggests rendering a plank 2-by-8-by-12 inches into a tall, narrow, frontward-sloping box a little over 7 inches wide and 2 feet tall in the front. The 2 1/2-inch hole should be situated beneath the lip of the roof.

2. Fill the nest box snugly with sawdust. This may seem a strange technique for encouraging use by birds, but northern flickers actively excavate their natural nest cavities in standing tree snags. Thus the process of removing sawdust mimics that of boring out spongy dead wood in the trunk or large branch of a cottonwood, quaking aspen or pine skeleton. It also helps ward off other birds that might otherwise use the box.

3. Wire the lid shut if using a hinge-roofed nest box. This allows for easy cleaning outside of the nesting season.

4. Affix the box partway up a suitable tree. It should be at least six feet off the ground and could be secured as high as 20 or 30 feet. In the wild, northern flickers have been known, on occasion, to nest as high as 100 feet off the ground in lofty trees, but this is unusual.

5. Erect the birdhouse ahead of the spring nesting season. This will vary somewhat depending on the region. The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission recommends a flicker nest box be ready to go by the first of April.

6. Monitor the use of the box with binoculars. Besides being a pleasurable act of amateur ornithology, your observations can hint at possible usurpers of a birdhouse you intended for flickers. European starlings, an immensely prolific and widespread invasive bird long established in North America, will often take over these artificial cavities.

Tips & Warnings

• For an inexpensive and attractive birdhouse, you can bore a suitably sized hole into a gourd and affix it in the same manner to a tree. Just remember to pack it with sawdust as you would with the standard wooden house.

• Blueprints for flicker nest boxes are widely available online, should you decide to construct your own. Your local extension office or wildlife agency may also be able to furnish you with plans.

References

• Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Building Nest Structures, Feeders, and Photo Blinds for North Dakota Wildlife - Northern Flicker
• Cornell Lab of Ornithology: Nestwatcher's Resource Center - Northern Flicker
• Nebraska Game and Parks Commission: Nest Box Plans - Northern Flicker
• Cornell Lab of Ornithology: All ABout Birds - Northern Flicker, Life History

Resources

• Texas Parks and Wildlife Department: Nestboxes and Birdhouses for Common Birds