Red-breasted Sapsucker at Work
Hardly anyone notices it. Yet the Red-breasted Sapsucker is there most days along a moderately busy sidewalk, about 12-feet up a Sweet Gum Tree. You can see its handiwork even when it is not around: parallel rows of sap lines, or wells. I refer to “it” because distinguishing gender in this species is very difficult. Often you will find the Sapsucker, seemingly oblivious to people, traffic, construction across the street or me taking pictures of it.
Fortunately, this Red-breasted Sapsucker chose to harvest a Sweet Gum Tree located in our front yard. It drills and harvests there for hours at a time, mostly silently, occasionally making a soft tapping sound. Red-breasted Sapsuckers, like their cousins, the Red-naped, Williamson’s and Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are in the woodpecker family. They drill sap holes, or wells, drink the sap, eat the tree’s inner bark and insects that become trapped in the sap that flows from their wells. Other birds benefit from their work too, especially hummingbirds, that also eat the sap and captive insects.
The colorful Red-breasted Sapsucker goes about its business each day, bringing joy to those who notice him, and food to other species of birds. What an amazing yet brilliant ecological niche this species occupies! You notice things like this when you look up.
Sources: Stokes Field Guide to Birds of North America, Donald and Lillian Stokes; The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior, David Allen Sibley; The Handbook of Bird Biology, Cornell Lab of Ornithology; allaboutbirds.org – Cornell Lab of Ornithology website
