Back in late May, I watched a pair of flickers courting and then mating in my local ravine (Bramalea Ching trail between Williams Parkway and Hillcrest). They nested in a poplar stump about 12 feet up which was in plain sight of the walkway by a small bridge. I saw the male working on the hole an the female also popping in and out. This all seemed pretty positive, until one morning when I found the nest under assault by a large black squirrel. Both flickers were there, making a lot of noise and looking like they might defend their nest, but in the end they more or less looked on as the squirrel edged down the stump and then disappeared entirely into the hole, and I supposed that it ate the eggs.
According to Birdsbybent
http://birdsbybent.com//index.html, flickers are not particularly strong defenders of their nests, and can be readily evicted by starlings, much less by an aggressive black squirrel.
I thought that was that for this pair!
But it looks like either the squirrel did not get the eggs (perhaps they were not yet laid or another clutch was laid?) and the flickers were able to raise two little flickers. I was able to watch the female feed them on several occasions from no more than 10 feet away.
This picture is of one of the youngsters just after the female has fed them. The feeding, by the way, was managed by the young violently thrusting their beaks down the mother's throat, which looked quite painful!
