SAPSUCKER INFLUENCES

      Yellow-bellied sapsuckers are a kind of North American woodpecker that nest in mixed coniferous/deciduous woodlands in the northern tier states of the United States and across Canada.  And they winter in the southern United States, north to the Middle Atlantic States, including here in southeastern Pennsylvania.  

     These sapsuckers are typical woodpeckers.  They raise young in tree cavities they chip from dead wood.  They have stiff tail feathers and two toes in front and two in back of each foot to brace themselves upright on vertical tree trunks while they drill into dead wood after invertebrates to eat.  And like all woodpeckers, they have long, sticky tongues they insert into the holes they chisel into wood to pull out invertebrates they consume.  Small birds like chickadees, kinglets and wrens can also reach into those wounds the sapsuckers created to pull out invertebrates to ingest.  

     A variety of small critters use abandoned sapsucker nesting cavities as shelters and/or nurseries for their own young.  Those creatures include chickadees, nuthatches, house wrens, flying squirrels, red squirrels, black rat snakes, honey bees and other species of wildlife.       

    I only see sapsuckers in winter in southeastern Pennsylvania where I live.  Attractive birds, they have black and white mottled backs, upper wings and tails, red throats, red caps over their beaks, and, of course, pale-yellow bellies. 

     In winter, I often hear sapsuckers before I see them foraging on trees in woods, orchards or older suburbs around home in southeastern Pennsylvania.  They often utter a soft mewing sound that gives away their presence

     Sapsuckers have a talent unique to themselves.  They use their sharp, strong beaks to punch neat rows of small, shallow holes in the softer bark of aspens and birches.  Each bird creates several orderly rows of holes, as it hitches up and down and sideways on the bark.  Some patches of tree bark become riddled with rows of sap wells that the sapsucker returns to later to use its elongated tongue to lap up the sugary sap that oozed into those tiny wells, and the teeny insects that fell into the sap and drowned.       

     Several kinds of small wildlife, including ruby-throated hummingbirds, chickadees, kinglets, gray squirrels, red squirrels, honey bees, hornets, various kinds of moths and other species of critters, come to those sap wells to help themselves to the nutritious, energy-filled sap.  But some sapsuckers don't like the hi-jacking of part of their food supply and try to chase those creatures away, with some success.  

     Yellow-bellied sapsuckers are unique woodpeckers with a special talent for chipping holes into relatively soft bark to lap the sap that fills those tiny, shallow wells.  Some people enjoy hearing and later seeing these beautiful woodpeckers at some time or another through each year.  And the works of sapsuckers provides food and shelter to several kinds of small wildlife.       

     

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