Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Identification

A medium-sized woodpecker with a crisp, high-contrast pattern: black and white mottling over the back and wings, a long white patch running along the folded wing, a black bib on the chest, and a wash of pale yellow over the belly that is easy to miss in poor light. Adults wear a scarlet crown and, in the male, a scarlet throat; the female's throat is white and her crown is smaller. Juveniles are dull brown and streaked, and are regularly mistaken for other species.

The name comes from its habit of drilling neat horizontal rows of shallow wells through the bark of living trees, then returning to lick up the beading sap and the insects drawn to it — the only North American woodpecker that feeds this way. Birch, maple, aspen and some conifers are favoured, and the healed wells leave tell-tale rows of scars on the trunk. It also takes cambium, fruit and insects, and will visit suet feeders. The call is a nasal, complaining 'mew' or squeal, quite unlike the sharp notes of other woodpeckers, and its drumming is an irregular, stuttering tattoo rather than a steady roll.

It breeds across the boreal and northern forests of North America and winters further south, sometimes reaching Central America, so passage and winter are the best times to look for it in woodlots and orchards. Check birch and maple trunks for orderly rows of small holes, then look up — a sapsucker is usually nearby, often sitting motionless against the bark. In spring it drums on metal road signs, gutters and roof flashing, a habit that makes it unusually conspicuous.