We’ve had a lot of wonderful avian visitors to our yard this spring. Dave set up a new feeding station since we suspect that our old one was knocked down by a bear and it’s been quite a hit. There are also now two bluebird boxes in the field so this year we have an Eastern Bluebird pair! Many of our yearly visitors have returned, including the Chipping Sparrows, Gray Catbird pair, American Robin pair, Rose-breasted Grosbeak pair, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, a Broad-winged Hawk, and the Red-eyed Vireo. Our Northern Cardinal and Pileated Woodpecker pairs have also been making frequent appearances.
Gray Catbird (Image by Michelle Horowitz)Gray Catbird (Image by Michelle Horowitz)Pileated Woodpecker male (Image by David Horowitz)Pileated Woodpecker male (Image by David Horowitz)Yellow-bellied Sapsucker breeding male (Image by David Horowitz)Chipping Sparrow (Image by Michelle Horowitz)
What kind of birds have been visiting your yard/area this spring? Let me know in the comments!
This week’s featured woodpecker is the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. It is one of North America’s four sapsucker species. This sapsucker is the most migratory woodpecker in the world.
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius)
Description:
Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are small (7.5-9 inches) with straight bills and a pied facial pattern. Both sexes have a red forehead and white napes. Males have bright red throats, solid black malar (cheek) stripe, a black bib, and pale yellow was on the breast. Females have pale white throats, black malar stripes, and a black bib. Adults of both sexes have black and mottled white bodies with a solid white stripe down their folded wings. Juveniles are a dusky brown with a yellowish belly and gray heads. They also feature a white wing stripe.
Adult male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Image by Dick Daniels/wikimedia commons, found via Boreal Songbird Initiative’s website)
Range:
Summer (breeding): as far North as eastern Alaska and across the boreal forests of Canada, parts of New England, and Adirondack Mountains. Migration: Midwest United States. Winter: Eastern and Southeastern United States, and goes as far south as Central America (down to Panama) and the Caribbean
tree sap, insects, berries, and other fruits. True to their names, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers drill neatly organized sapwells in horizontal rows. The trees they choose to drill have a higher concentration of sugar in the sap, and are usually sick or wounded. Aspens, Paper birch, sugar maple, and hickory trees are a few of the tree species they drill. They drill throughout the year to keep the sap fresh on both their wintering and breeding grounds. Sometimes they will catch insects in mid-air after perching from a branch, similar to flycatchers.
Sapwells (Image by Mike Lathroum via marylandbiodiversity.com)
Breeding/Nesting:
Males arrive at the breeding territory a week before females to scout out a drumming post. The female and male will scurry around the tree trunk together while tapping a potential excavation site. Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are monogamous. Like other woodpeckers, these Sapsuckers are cavity nests. They usually use the same tree for up to 7 years, but will use a different cavity in that tree each year.
Females lay between 5-6 (sometimes 3-7) eggs per year and started incubating around the third or fourth. Males and females will share incubation duties for around 12-13 days. The young fledge 25-29 days after hatching. The parents will teach the young sapsucking skills for around 10 days after leaving the nest.
Sounds:
Quieter during the winter but pretty vocal during breeding. A repeated nasal mewing meehhr!, a quee-ah, queeah! scratchy call. Drumming is typically done by males.
Conservation:
In the past, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers received a bad reputation for damaging and drilling in timber in the Eastern United States. Due to forest clear-cutting numbers declined, but recently have increased and are more widespread. It’s estimated that there is a global population 10 million breeding pairs by the organization Partners in Flight. It’s possible that the population is higher than pre-settlement times. Although more common, they are still consider climate-threatened.
Female Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Image by Greg Lavaty via Seattle Audubon)
Fun Facts:
Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are one of the three sapsuckers in the varius superspecies. The other two sapsuckers in varius are the Red-breasted and Red-naped Sapsuckers. These species have been known to hybridize in certain areas of the west. The fourth North American sapsucker, the Williamson’s, is more genetically different than the other sapsucker superspeices. Studies show they are the most ancestral of the four sapsuckers in the Sphyrapicus genus.
These sapsuckers make two different holes to access sap. Small round holes are made deep in the trunk, which are used to reach the sap. Rectangular holes that are shallower must be maintained to keep the sap flowing.
Hummingbirds are attracted to the sapwells that Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers make. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have become so depend on these sapwells that they will time their spring migration to when the sapsuckers arrive.
The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker is the logo for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Sapsucker Woods Sanctuary is names for this species. It was in Sapsucker Woods that Arthur Allen (the Lab’s founder) and artist Lous Agassiz Fuertes discovered the first Yellow-bellied Sapsucker nest in the Finger Lakes area of New York in 1909. Fuertes later named this spot Sapsucker Woods. (story found in the Lab’s publication Living Bird, winter 2015 edition)
Yesterday, my fiancé Dave and I went birding at Palmyra Cove Nature Park. The park consists of woodlands, a cove, ponds, wetlands, meadows, and a shoreline along the Delaware River. There weren’t many visitors due to all the snow around, so it was nice and quiet. We added two new birds to our life list.
At the beginning of our walk we saw two woodpeckers pecking around some trees. I am a big fan of woodpeckers, so I am always excited when they are around. There are 10 species of woodpeckers in New Jersey. Dave and I most commonly see Downy, Hairy, Red-Bellied, and Northern Flickers, although I did see a Pileated once (more on that another time!). So when we saw two medium-sized woodpeckers we assumed that we were seeing two Hairy woodpeckers. One of them was a female Hairy because she did not have the red spot on the back of her head.
On closer investigation we realized the other looked a little different. It didn’t have a white belly like a hairy would, but mottled with more of a yellow hue. It had a red crown on its head. It was a Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker! Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers are called this because they create sapwells into the inner bark, and suck up the sap from the tree with their tongues. Like other woodpeckers they will also eat insects that get stuck to the sticky sap. They breed in Canada down through New England to North Dakota and will winter throughout the East Coast and the Midwest. The male Yellow-Bellied has a red crown and throat, while the female only has a red crown. We were able to see our female Yellow-Bellied check the small holes in the trees that she made. If you look close to the image below (it’s cropped) you can see the holes she made. Every once in awhile the female Hairy and Yellow-Bellied would fight and chase each other from tree to tree. The Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker is a new “Life bird” for us, meaning it’s the first time we’ve seen it, so we added it to our “Life List”.
Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker (taken by David Horowitz)
Other birds on our walk included: a Cooper’s Hawk soaring over a meadow, a Double-Crested Cormorant, Downy Woodpeckers, numerous Ring-Billed Gulls, male and female Buffleheads, a male Northern Cardinal, a Mockingbird eating bread found in the parking lot, and our other new life list addition, the Greater Scaup.
Male and female Buffleheads (taken by David Horowitz)Northern Mockingbird enjoys some bread (taken by David Horowitz)
The Greater Scaup and its relative the Lesser Scaup are diving ducks that are almost identical. The term “Greater” means it’s the largest of a species, “Lesser” is the smallest of the species. Male Scaups of both species have black heads/chests/rears, white sides, gray feathers on top, and a bluish bill with a black tip. Females are brown with a white patch at the bill. The different between Scaups is not only size, but Greaters have rounder heads, while Lessers have a bump/peak at the back of the head. Greater males can have a greenish iridescence on their heads while Lessers may should purplish or greenish heads. We decided the male we saw was a Greater Scaup since his head looked rounder.
We did have one bonus animal that was not a bird: a River Otter! It was running across the path so unfortunately we didn’t get a picture of it. Another great birding day.
BirdNation 