Bird of the Week

Posted

2019/06/bird-of-the-week-red-naped-ss-3-300-300x225.jpg Photo courtesy Charles Martinez

This week’s Bird of the Week, compliments of the Weminuche Audubon Society and Audubon Rockies, is the red-naped sapsucker.

We are fairly accustomed to seeing hairy, downy and Lewis woodpeckers, and northern flickers in the ponderosa-oak habitat type at this time of year. However, you may be hard-pressed to find a red-naped sapsucker lingering in these zones. Instead, they tend to spend their time during the breeding season largely in aspen forests, developing and defending sap wells. They also frequent cottonwood galleries, mixed conifer and deciduous stands.

Indicators of activity include small holes drilled in parallel lines, where hammer drilling produces a replenishing flow of sap during the warm months, resulting in the varied insects that are drawn to it. Even hummingbirds have been documented following sapsuckers to their respective wells to take advantage of the offerings.

Sapsuckers have shorter tongues than the average woodpecker, equipped with hairs that help them to “sip” the sweet sap from the wells. Additionally, these birds feed regularly on insects, spiders, berries and fruits.

Sapsuckers drill their own holes for nesting each year. Cavities left behind from previous years provide valuable nesting habitat for nuthatches, chickadees, other woodpeckers and even bluebirds.

For identification purposes, look for the distinctive red throat, forehead and nape (some females can have a white nape and chin spot) and a vertical white patch on the wings of this mid-sized bird. Though they can have some black and white checkering on their backs and buff on the belly, they can be definitively distinguished from the Williamson’s sapsucker by the red on top of the head.

These birds travel a short distance to points south (Arizona/New Mexico/northern Mexico) for the winter months, but spend the majority of the year establishing territory and breeding in the mosaic forests of the Rocky Mountains.

For information on local bird-watching events, visit www.weminucheaudubon.org and www.facebook.com/weminucheaudubon/.