Okay, say that title 5 times without tripping over your tongue.
Sapsuckers do, indeed, suck sap. It’s their main food source, though they also dine on insects, especially ones attracted to sap.
Sap wells are the holes that yellow-bellied sapsuckers drill into live trees. Once you’ve seen sap wells, you can’t mistake the lines of organized holes for anything else.
In the spring sapsuckers drill deep round holes (into the tree’s xylem for the botanically inclined) to catch the sap rising from the roots up to the branches.
Later, after the tree has leafed out, they drill shallow, rectangular holes (into the phloem) to catch the sap being sent down the tree to be stored in the roots.
Yellow-bellied sapsuckers are frequent visitors to our yard. For years they have dined on the sap from lilac, saskatoon and mountain ash.
Even from a distance it’s possible to spot a sap-stained tree trunk.
The lilac still blooms each year, despite the havoc heaped on some of its trunks.
The saskatoon bush has also seen lots of sapsucker activity.
Recent holes on the mountain ash (the yellowy orange ones) along with the work of years past.
This year, for the first time, I caught a sapsucker family feeding on a large aspen.
This year’s young
Male, with red head and red throat. Females lack the red throat patch.
The long vertical white wing bar is a distinguishing feature of yellow-bellied sapsuckers
Search YouTube if you’d like to see these suckers in action. 🙂
Yellow-bellied sapsucker Sphyrapicus varius
Aspen Populus tremuloides
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