Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
The four species of sapsuckers all drill small sap wells in regularly spaced rows or columns on tree trunks. They eat the exposed inner bark and cambium and drink the sugary sap that flows from these pits. Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers have been found to tap over 250 species of trees and vines. Sap composes up to 20 percent of their diet and is especially important in late summer and autumn, or any time when other food sources are scarce. During the breeding season, they forage in the manner of typical woodpeckers, flaking off bark chips or excavating insects in dead wood. They also sally from perches to catch flying insects in the manner of flycatchers. In early spring, buds are eaten, and from October to February, fruit and berries are significant.

Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers can be found breeding across Canada east of the Rockies to southern Labrador and Newfoundland south to the northern United States from North Dakota to New York and Connecticut and south through the Appalachians to northwest Georgia. During winter, these migratory woodpeckers are common only where the temperatures seldom fall below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Almost all leave the summer range and winter in the southeastern United States, the West Indies, and in the middle and high altitudes of Central America as far south as Panama. Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are among the most highly migratory woodpeckers, and the only northern woodpecker to winter so far south.
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Range Map

Description: Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are medium-sized woodpeckers with distinctive head patterns. The forehead and crown are red bordered with black. White stripes extend across the bill and cheeks to the sides of the neck and over the eye curving back to the nape. The rest of the head and a band across the upper breast is black. Wings are black spotted with white and have a large white patch. The back and tail are blackish, irregularly barred with yellowish white. The rump is white, and the underparts are pale yellow.

Females have a white throat, whereas males' throats are red. Juveniles do not acquire full adult plumage until the spring after the year they were hatched, and they are much more brown overall, lacking the black-and-white head pattern and black breast band of the adult. Juvenile males may show some red on the crown and throat.

The similar Red-naped Sapsucker (S. nuchalis) is the only other woodpecker with a red forehead and black upper breast. Until recently, this bird was considered conspecific with the Yellow-bellied and the Red-breasted sapsuckers. The Red-naped Sapsucker has a variable red spot on the back of the head that the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker lacks, and the barring on the back of the Red-naped Sapsucker is organized into two vertical stripes.

The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker has one of the most distinctive and easily recognized drumming patterns of all woodpeckers. Upon returning to their breeding grounds in the spring, both males and females announce their presence with staccato drum rolls typically preceded by a couple of clearly separated taps, and ending with five or six disconnected taps: tap, tap, trrrrrrrrrrt, tap, tap, tap, tap-tap.

Visit Shaw Creek Bird Supply to see our selection of Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Feeders.

Copyright © 2003 Shaw Creek Bird Supply