Yellow Bellied Sapsucker

Description:

The Yellow Bellied Sapsucker is a spirited, medium-sized woodpecker that makes its home in southern Canada and the northern parts of the United States. The bird is 7-9 inches high and has a wingspan of 13-16 inches. They weigh between 1.52 and 1.94 ounces.

The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker is the only woodpecker that has a vertical white stripe down its side. It has a very striking red crown and forehead with a black border. The face is striped with black and white and the back is black with whitish barring. The upper chest is also black and there's black barring on the side of the belly. The Yellow bellied Sapsucker gets it name from its yellow belly, back, and top part of the chest. Its wings are black with white spots, and the woodpecker has black eyes, feet and bill. The rump is white and tail is dark with black and white barring on central most and outermost retricies. While the female does have a red head, she has a white throat and chin, while the male is entirely red in this area.

Diet:

Food consists of sap, fruit and insects from the leaves of plants. Yellow bellied Sapsuckers can be attracted to backyard bird feeders. They make two different kinds of holes in trees: the first, through which the sap is lapped, is round, deep, and placed in a vertical line, one above another up and down the tree. The second kind of hole is rectangular and not as deep, it will continually peck at the hole to keep the sap flowing. They acquire insects by every available means, such as tapping, probing, prying and fly catching.

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Nesting Habits:

The Yellow bellied Sapsucker will frequent manmade bird houses, but the chances of them breeding there is rare. However, they do use manmade materials for drumming, including metal roofs and street signs. It is not uncommon to see this woodpecker drumming each day on the same metal sign. For bedding, however, they prefer to make a nest in the hole of a dead tree. The female lays 2-7 white eggs. Male and female birds are very devoted to one another, and even take turns in building the nest.

More Information:

The bird's habitat is aspen and birch trees, along the edge of a forest or stream. They like to winter in forests, preferably in woods that are semi-open.

The Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker's breeding range is from the central part of Alaska to Newfoundland, then south to southern Alberta, northern parts of Pennsylvania and Iowa and down into the Appalachians and North Carolina. The Sapsucker is the only woodpecker on the eastern coast that is totally migratory. They are known to head as far south as Panama. In Alberta, where the Sapsucker territory is close to that of the Red-napped Sapsucker, the two will breed and form a hybrid.

With the name Sapsucker, you might think that tree sap was this bird's primary food but that is not the case. In fact, the Yellow Bellied Sapsucker is mainly an insect-eater. It ranks only next to the Flicker as an ant eater, with 36% of his food coming from ants. He also devours wasps, beetles, bugs, grasshoppers and crickets, and eats more flies than any other woodpecker. Because the shallow holes they make in tree trunks are used by other species of wild birds, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker is regarded as "a keystone species," meaning that his existence is vital to the entire bird community.

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