Today I went out in late morning to see if any of the wintering sapsuckers would be out after we hit -19 degrees F last night. The temp was up to around 7 degrees F when I located a male Williamson's Sapsucker drilling repeatedly at the lower part of the trunk including the base of a large ponderosa pine in which I have previously seen a male Williamson's feeding this season. It is very unusual to see a sapsucker working at the base or lower part of trunk as they tend to feed above 4 feet or so in my experience (and as documented by the location of thousands of sap wells in Canon City trees). I watched from across the street to avoid disturbing him and observed him moving around the tree a lot more than I usually observe as though having difficulty finding food. After a few minutes he flew to another pine not far away but stayed only a few minutes before flying high off into the distance. After he left I went up to the tree where he had been chiseling and took photos of the holes he had made and all the bark and wood chips that had fallen on the snow. Photos of this and the sapsucker are on my BirdsAndNature <http://BirdsAndNature.blogspot.com> blog.
I then drove to Centennial Park where I found another male Williamson's. I haven't seen a male sapsucker at this location so he apparently traveled here to locate food today. I did not see either the female Williamson's or the female Yellow-bellied I saw here just a few days ago. This male sapsucker flew from pine tree to pine tree, checking several before settling in to work on one. He, too, went to the base of the tree and was working only inches from the ground. I stayed well back and in my car, leaving after only a few minutes to avoid disturbing his feeding in these harsh conditions. I did not see the Red-naped but did not check extensively as that risks flushing these often very sensitive birds. I checked both locations around 2:30, The first male had returned to the tree that he was working on when I first saw him and the one at Centennial Park was still there but working on a different tree than earlier. I also checked after 4 and found the first sapsucker still at the same location at 4:15 and the Centennial park bird at the same location at 4:20 (but gone at 4:35). The fact that there have been 4 different sapsuckers trying to feed on bark, wood and sap that clearly is frozen in this harsh weather may indicate some level of desperation for food since leaving wherever it is that they are finding shelter would expend energy that badly need in these conditions, and especially all the flying/moving about I observed by the birds today would seem to use a lot of energy. The fact that the two males today moved around and between trees would seem to point out the difficulty of finding food. Their feeding on the lower trunks of trees and especially near the base would seem adaptive as this is where the trees would get the most solar exposure that might help thaw them out. Each location where I saw them drilling/chiseling was on the southern exposure, again where the most sun would warm the trees. I suspect that these sapsuckers have experience with freezing temperatures and trees during the breeding season as they would be at higher elevation both early and late in that season when temperatures fall quite low at the elevations where they are usually found; however, they would not likely have to deal with such very low and sustained low temperatures, which makes feeding difficult and would logically be the reason they are known to migrate further south in winter. SeEtta Moss Canon City http://BirdsAndNature.blogspot.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
