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Holes left by a sapsucker As their name implies, sapsuckers feed primarily on the sap of trees , moving among different tree and shrub species on a seasonal basis. Insects , especially those attracted to the sweet sap exuding from sap holes, are often captured and fed to the young during the breeding season.
Woodpeckers tend to be sexually dimorphic, but differences between the sexes are generally small; exceptions to this are Williamson's sapsucker and the orange-backed woodpecker, which differ markedly. The plumage is moulted fully once a year apart from the wrynecks, which have an additional partial moult before breeding. [8]
The birds can cause serious damage to trees, and intensive feeding has been documented as a source of tree mortality. [26] Sapsucker feeding can kill a tree by girdling, [27] which occurs when a ring of bark around the trunk is severely injured. [26] Ring shake—spaces between rings of growth in trees—can be a result of sapsucker injury. [28]
Birds of Olympic National Park: Bald eagle, Western gull, Red-breasted sapsucker, Woodpecker, Belted kingfisher, Steller’s and Gray jay, Blue grouse, Peregrine falcon and Northern pygmy owl.
A sapsucker's tongue is adapted with stiff hairs for collecting sap. Red-breasted sapsuckers visit the same tree multiple times, drilling holes in neat horizontal rows. A bird will leave and come back later, when the sap has started flowing from the holes. Repeated visits over an extended period of time can actually kill the tree. [9]
Like other woodpeckers, insects form a large part of the diet, being caught on the wing in some species, but fruit is also eaten in large quantities and some species consume sap. They all nest in holes that they excavate in trees, and the red-crowned woodpecker and the Hoffmann's woodpecker are unusual in that they sometimes enter their holes ...
The female lays between 2 and 7 eggs, which are plain white. The eggs are incubated by both sexes, but the nesting period and other details are unknown. Like most other woodpeckers the ladder-backed woodpecker bores into tree-trunks with its chisel-like bill to hunt for insects and their larva, but it also feeds on fruit produced by cacti.
The reddish tinge on the belly that gives the bird its name is difficult to see in field identification. [7] White patches become visible on the wings in flight. [8] Red-bellied woodpeckers are 22.85 to 26.7 cm (9.00 to 10.51 in) long, have a wingspan of 38 to 46 cm (15 to 18 in), [7] and weigh 2.0–3.2 oz (57–91 g). [9]