Gilded Flicker

About the Gilded Flicker
Gilded Flicker
The Gilded Flicker is a medium-sized species of woodpecker found in the Sonoran Desert in southwestern North America. They are closely related to the Northern Flicker and were at one time considered to be the same species. The Gilded Flicker has the red mustachial stripe of the red-shafted flicker and the yellow underwings of the yellow-shafted flicker.

Gilded Flickers most frequently build their nests inside holes excavated in saguaro cactus plants. The birds do not line the nest cavity but the cactus does secrete a sap that protects itself from water loss from the excavation.

Details & Statistics

Conservation

The Gilded Flicker is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List and was last assessed in 2012 by BirdLife International. This species has a very large range, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion (Extent of Occurrence <20,000 km2 combined with a declining or fluctuating range size, habitat extent/quality, or population size and a small number of locations or severe fragmentation). Despite the fact that the population trend appears to be decreasing, the decline is not believed to be sufficiently rapid to approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend criterion (>30% decline over ten years or three generations). The population size is extremely large, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population size criterion (<10,000 mature individuals with a continuing decline estimated to be >10% in ten years or three generations, or with a specified population structure). For these reasons the species is evaluated as Least Concern.

International Names