WatchList Species Account for Gilded Flicker (Colaptes chrysoides)

Photo: Bill Hubick

The Gilded Flicker is primarily a ground-foraging bird formerly regarded as conspecific with the Yellow-shafted and Red-shafted Flickers. It is a non-migrating resident in the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona and southeastern California and adjacent Mexico including throughout the Baha California peninsula. Found in lower Sonoran cactus forest, it nests primarily in saguaro but also in cottonwoods and willows in riparian woodland. Competition with starlings for nest holes in saguaro apparently has had no negative effect on populations of the Gilded Flicker, though it has for the smaller Gila Flicker. The Gilded Flicker is known to hybridize with the Red-shafted Flicker. Its populations are at least stable and may be increasing. The main threat to the bird is loss of habitat and nest cavities within its quite limited range.