Fun Fact Friday: Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are handsome woodpeckers of eastern North America that, as their name suggests, rely on sap for the vast majority of their food. Sapsuckers use their stout, sharp bills to drill small holes in the bark of trees, collecting the sap that gathers in these wells with their brush-tipped tongues – adapted for just this purpose. They favor trees with high sugar content – like birches, maples, and hickories – and drill throughout the year, on both wintering and breeding grounds. Sapsuckers will also supplement their diets with ants and spiders (often trapped in their sapwells), flying insects (which they hunt like flycatchers), and some fruit.
Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are the only North American woodpecker that’s completely migratory. They breed across northern North America, from Newfoundland to Alaska, and winter as far south as Panama, with females tending to travel farther south than males. Sapsucker pairs stay together during the breeding season and through raising young, and will often find each other again the following season (or seasons).
Fun Fact: Other bird species – like Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and Ruby-crowned Kinglets – take advantage of the Sapsucker’s labors (as do some bats and porcupines), taking sap and insects from the sapwells they dig out. It’s such an important resource to many of these birds that they’ll time their spring migrations to coincide with the woodpecker’s arrival.
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