Meet the neighbours; Sapsuckers

  Last summer Helen and I found a tree pastb the hay field where a large section of bark had been perforated by a number of fairly regularly spaced retangular wounds. We had no idea what had done this. This year we encountered a fairly secretive bird while walking the dogs, it was always in the same grouping of a few poplars and some willows. We finally saw it was a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. We also realized it had created the same type of scars, called a sap well on one of the treees  Further reading indicated that it defended these wells against other birds including Hummingbirds. A few days later we noticed Waxwings were at the wells and sure enough the Sapsucker appeared. We have often seen Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, every year the young inspect a dead tree next to the porch. But this is the first time we have seen a we have seen a sap well near the cabin.

 

More photos of the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker here.

https://thatsjustthewildwood.blogspot.com/search?q=sapsucker

"Every morning
the world
is created.

Under the orange 
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again 
and fasten themselves to the high branches —"

from Morning Poem

by Mary Oliver

The approach to our cabin begins when you turn off a 

gravel road and travel along a gravel lane running through

a field farmed by my brother in law, the field is ringed 

with poplar and the lane has a line of waist high weeds in 

the ditches on either side. Vesper Sparrows run in front of

the vehicle luring you from the locations of their nests and

Goldfinches sway from the top of the thistles. You pass a 

small slough on the right ringed with brush and at the edge

of the field you enter a stand of poplar and begin to climb 

up a steep slope to the ridge where the cabin sits. It is in 

these poplars where we stationed the trail camera that supplied

the pictures of moose, deer and coyotes I posted earlier. The 

poplars also house large numbers of birds including Waxwings,

Red Eyed Vireos, Purple Finches and the Yellow Bellied Sapsucker 

whose young we could hear even over the engine noise for the first

week we were there. You then come to the top of the ridge

where the cabin sits on the edge of the meadow where it

overlooks the slough. It is all these niches with their varied

 plants and animals that I am really looking forward to exploring

when I can spend more time at the cabin. I would really like to

document the distribution of sparrows which is one of the reasons 

I purchased my larger camera lens. While I did not get shots of the 

Vesper Sparrows a stated goal, I did get some shots of the

Sapsucker. 

"I walk, all day, across the heaven-verging field."

                                                 from Upstream 

                                                    Mary Oliver

"And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists

of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money,

I don't even want to come in out of the rain."

from Black Oaks
Mary Oliver