Yellow bellied sapsucker

Male yellow-bellied sapsucker (females lack the red "beard")

What: One of my students found a yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) that had died near her house (no sign of predation, perhaps flew into a window). The next day we got to watch a sapsucker drilling holes in a bitternut hickory (Carya cordiformis) and licking out the sap. I propped open the bird's mouth with an elderberry twig to show the bristles that line the tongue. Birds can't "suck" like we can from a straw, so having the hairs allows the woodpecker to lick up much more sap than a smooth tongue would be able to. The hairs work via capillary action, which is the ability of water and other liquids to overcome the force of gravity via intermolecular attractive forces to solids. This can be seen readily by holding the tip of a napkin in water and watching the water travel up the napkin. So all that surface area acts as a magnet of sorts and the little birdie can lap up even more liquid.

Ecological notes: Sapsuckers make distinctive horizontal rows of sapwells. It's interesting to note that we had tapped a bitternut hickory and hadn't gotten any flow. The sapsucker showed up just as the sap started dripping into our buckets. While the sapsuckers miss the better flow of maples, they have been recorded utilizing over a thousand different species, so there's plenty for them to go after.

I was also impressed by the incredible sharpness of the claws. I could easily perch the bird on my finger from just one of its claws. It's feet kept getting caught on everything because they were so sharp. Must be an adaptation for gripping a tree as the bird fiercely bangs its head against it while making its sapwells.

Where: Rock Point, Burlington

Bird a Day - Hairy Woodpecker

What: These are a couple of shots of the female hairy woodpecker. For notes on the difference between this little gal and the very very similar looking downy woodpecker, see yesterday's posting. In short (or long), the hairy woodpecker's bill is considerable bigger relative to body size.

Where: The silver maple in my side yard

Other notes: I remember reading Sam Thayer saying that he only wrote about wild edibles that he had tried himself. I really like that perspective, and I was reflecting on what I've included in this blog. A lot of it has been citations of the work of others, stuff that I hadn't observed in person. I think reading this has pushed a lot of my thinking, but it also has substituted for actual experience. While observing the hairy woodpecker feeding on the maple, I realized how little of substance I had to say about this creature and felt bad. I suppose that's my challenge over the coming weeks, to better know the hairy woodpeckers that are my neighbors.

Bird a Day - Downy Woodpecker

What: Female downy woodpecker above. Male shown below, note the visible red blotch on his nape. Sex is pretty easy to determine for most of our woodpeckers. General rule: If it has red on its head it's a male, if not it's female. Beware, as this doesn't always work (as with pileated woodpeckers - both have red on their head).

Hairy woodpeckers (coming tomorrow) can be really difficult to tell the apart from downys. A hairy woodpecker is beefed up downy woodpecker (hairys are about the size of robins, downys are just slightly bigger than titmice). My old roommate, and fantastic naturalist, Emily Stone, used the following mnemonic:

    "What bill??" - downy woodpecker
    "What a bill!!" - hairy woodpecker

Note that the downy has a thin narrow bill shorter than the bird's head is; hairys have thick chunky bills longer than the diameter of the bird's head.

Where: Silver maple in my backyard