The Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker {Sphyrapicu-vaHus) 



By C. Hart Merriam 



Length, about 8^ inches. Only woodpecker having top of head from base 

 of bill red, combined with a black patch on breast. 



Range: Breeds in northern half of the United States and southern half of 

 Canada ; winters in most of the States and south to Costa Rica. 



Habits and economic status : The yellow-bellied sapsucker is rather silent 

 and suspicious and generally manages to have a tree between himself and the 

 observer. Hence the bird is much better known by its works than its appearance. 

 The regular girdles of holes made by this bird are common on a great variety 

 of trees ; in all about 250 kinds are known to be attacked. Occasionally young 

 trees are killed outright, but more loss is caused by stains and other blemishes 

 in the wood which result from sapsucker punctures. These blemishes, which 

 are known as bird pecks, are especially numerous in hickory, oak, cypress, and 

 yellow poplar. Defects due to sapsucker work cause an annual loss to the lumber 

 industry estimated at $1,250,000. The food of the yellow-bellied sapsucker is 

 about half animal and half vegetable. Its fondness for ants counts slightly in 

 its favor. It eats also wasps, beetles (including, however, very few wood-boring 

 species), bugs, and spiders. The two principle components of the vegetable food 

 are wild fruits of no importance and cambium (the layer just beneath the bark 

 of trees). In securing the cambium the bird does the damage above described. 

 The yellow-bellied sapsucker, unlike other woodpeckers, thus does comparatively 

 little good and much harm. 



Nest a deep cavity in a tree trunk, the bottom softened with fine chips ; eggs 

 five to seven. 



As shown in the cut, the striking features of the male sapsucker are the 

 bright scarlet on crown and throat, the double band, black and white, bordering 

 the throat patch and the long white bar on the side of the wing. The female's 

 throat is white and the crown is sometimes black. 



How well this woodpecker shows the marks of his family! His position 

 on the tree says — woodpecker ; his strong sharp, pick-axe-like bill says — wood- 

 pecker; his toes — two in front and two behind — say woodpecker, and even his 

 tail with its stiff feathers braced against the bark for a support tells the same 

 tale. 



If you would know the sapsucker when you see him, remember that long 

 white bar on the side of the wing. You can see this bar as far as you can see the 

 bird, and frequently when the scarlet crown and throat cannot be seen. It is 

 not easy to confuse the sapsucker with the red-headed woodpecker — as some do — 

 if one remembers that while the whole head and neck of the red-head are red, 

 only the crown and throat of the sapsucker are red. In parts of the country the 

 sapsucker is appropriately called the red-throated woodpecker. 



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