Plate 37 – Gold Winged Woodpecker

John James Audubon regarded the Gold Winged Woodpecker (present-day Northern flicker) as “extremely common” throughout much of the eastern United States and into Canada. Audubon added, “It is impossible to form any estimate of the number of these birds seen in the United States during the summer months; but this much I may safely assert, that a hundred have been shot upon a single cherry-tree in one day. Pears, peaches, apples, figs, mulberries, and even peas, are thus attacked.” Even though fewer gunshots are getting fired in their direction, there is nowhere in North America that the Northern flicker could be considered “extremely common.”