Woodpecker houses

The flicker box

NestWatch’s Northern Flicker box is 7¼ by 7¼ in inside and 24 in deep, three times the depth of a chickadee box, with a 2½ in round hole. Its boards are 1½ in thick, twice the usual minimum. Inside, a ladder of grooves ¼ in deep and ½ in apart runs from the floor up to the hole.

The hole’s height above the floor is not in our sources: take it from NestWatch’s plan for the box.

Fill it with chips every year

Flickers are woodpeckers and dig out their own nest, so NestWatch’s design packs the whole box with white pine chips and renews them each year before nesting. NestWatch’s date for that, April 1, is regional guidance, not a date for the whole country.

Where to put it

In shaded, open woods where the bird has a clear flight path to the box, 6 to 12 ft up, facing south or east and tilted slightly forward. Mount it on a pole with a baffle, at least 10 ft from the nearest tree, and keep flicker boxes 330 ft apart.

A 2½ in hole also lets in European Starlings, and nothing guarantees a flicker will choose the box.

Downy, Hairy and Red-bellied woodpeckers

These three dig their own nest hole in a tree, usually in dead wood. Our sources give no box design for them, so this page gives no sizes. A dead tree or limb left standing, where it is safe to leave it, gives them somewhere to dig.

Feeding woodpeckers

Woodpeckers come for suet and peanuts; a suet cage with a tail prop lets them brace as they do on a trunk.