Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker Gardens: Bluebirds’ and Hummers’ Best Friends

Summary: Planned and wild yellow-bellied sapsucker gardens in Canada, Mexico and the United States offer what bluebirds, hummers and sapsuckers need and want.

yellow-bellied sapsucker at Quabbin Reservoir, Massachusetts: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Region (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Northeast Region), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

North America’s yellow-bellied sapsuckers arrive in northerly yellow-bellied sapsucker gardens in Canada and the United States between February and May and in southerly yellow-bellied sapsucker gardens in Mexico, and southward, by November.

Yellow-bellied sapsuckers bring in their immediate wake ruby-throated hummingbirds, all of whose distribution ranges, migration times and transportation routes and some of whose food sources overlap. North Americans generally consider yellow-bellied sapsuckers less welcome garden visitors than ruby-throated hummingbirds even though North America’s iconic hummers need sapsuckers far more than vice versa. They typically describe ruby-throated hummingbirds as nectar-drinkers even though the iconic hummers arrive before spring’s liquid and solid flowering non-woody and woody plant refreshment is plentiful.

Yellow-bellied sapsuckers drilling holes for amino acid- and sucrose-rich tree sap to drip into accessible, clean depressions enables ruby-throated hummingbirds to leave before migration traffic jams.

North America’s yellow-bellied sapsuckers follow sap-filled trails through the groves, mixed coniferous and deciduous forests, orchards, wooded river bottoms, woodlands and woodlots in yellow-bellied sapsucker gardens.

Aspens and birches in particular give yellow-bellied sapsuckers opportunities to drill cavities for eggs and nestlings and holes for sap and to forage for protein-rich arthropods. The holes, whose regular horizontal spacing may girdle the bark, have pecked-out depressions whose well-like looks attract winter-parched hummers, songbirds and squirrels and recall maple sugar-tapping. The nest is at the bottom of a 5-inch- (12.7-centimeter-) wide, 14-inch- (35.56-centimeter-) deep, gourd-shaped cavity 8 to 40 feet (2.44 to 12.19 meters) above ground.

Bluebirds jump for nesting opportunities in abandoned, predator-proof yellow-bellied sapsucker cavities as alternatives to their (and passenger pigeons’) traditional nesting tree, the American chestnut (Castanea dentata).

Seven-year life cycles keep one couple adding cavities to one heartwood-weakened, tinder fungus- (Fomes igniarius-) afflicted home tree that is preferentially aspen (Populus) or birch (Betula).

Monogamy leads to 8-day-long co-building new nests annually and 13-day-long co-incubating four to seven elliptical or oval, smooth-shelled, 0.88- by 0.67-inch (22.44- by 16.92-millimeter), white eggs. Fledglings independently may find berries and fruits and handle tree-trunk feeder-station doughnuts, grape jelly, suet and sugar-water within four weeks of hatching in yellow-bellied sapsucker gardens. Master gardeners and master naturalists note resemblances of immature females and males to adult females, except for dark-brown foreheads in juveniles and red in all adults.

Adults obtain 8- to 9-inch (20.32- to 22.86-centimeter) head-to-tail body lengths, 1.5- to 1.9-ounce (42.52- to 53.86-gram) weights and 16- to 18-inch (40.64- to 45.73-centimeter) wingspans.

Yellow bellies and breasts provide the common name for yellow-bellied sapsuckers, whose cat-like calls go wheer-wheer-wheer and whose scientific name is Sphyrapicus varius (variegated hammer woodpecker).

Ants, bees, butterflies, hummers, squirrels and woodpeckers queue up even before the yellow-bellied sapsucker’s signature drum of rapid staccato beats followed by slow rhythmic taps stops. The 250 arboreal species that yearly are sap-tapped generally remain clean since ruby-throated hummingbirds and yellow-bellied sapsuckers feed upon both the sap and the sap-drinking arthropods. Adults, with black-and-white lined backs and tails, black-lined red foreheads and white rumps and wing patches stand out in yellow-bellied sapsucker gardens as birds to thank.

Differentiating bigger, red-throated males and smaller, white-throated females flapping, gliding, undulating during flight sometimes takes discerning eyes even though lovers of fine sap know the difference.

A garden in proximity to birches attracts yellow bellied sapsuckers as well as synchronous birds such as bluebirds and ruby-throated hummingbirds; holes drilled by yellow bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) in dying white birch (Betula papyrifera), Jacques Cartier National Park, Québec, Canada: Cephas, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

yellow-bellied sapsucker, CC BY SA 3.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwsnortheast/8574372949/

holes drilled by yellow bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) in dying white birch (Betula papyrifera), Jacques Cartier National Park, Québec, Canada: Cephas, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YellowBellied_Sapsucker_Holes.jpg

For further information:

Wild Bird Video Productions. "Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers." YouTube. July 7, 2011.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj-nXi-c3gM

WRC of Minnesota‏ @WRCMN. 10 April 2016. "Recently admitted Yellow-bellied Sapsucker [Updated]." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/WRCMN/status/719271331292798977

“Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker.” Audubon > Animals > Birds > Guide to North American Birds.
Available @ http://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/yellow-bellied-sapsucker

“Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker.” National Geographic > Animals >Birding.
Available @ http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birding/yellow-bellied-sapsucker/