Subject: Food storing by Sapsucker
Date: Sep 10 17:31:56 1995
From: JLRosso at aol.com - JLRosso at aol.com


This is a first for me. On this gorgeous day I have been sitting on my deck
here in Issaquah watching fairly frantic bird activity. I started noticing a
Red-breasted Sapsucker that was also working on the red berries that the
Cedar Waxwings were working on. But I noticed that the sapsucker was also
flying over to one portion of another tree. Through a 20x scope I could watch
it put some of the red berries into a crack into the tree! As far as I can
tell it had stored the berries in its crop and then would insert them into
the tree. I have been checking references and I don't find much in Skutch or
Bent on caching, especially for sapsuckers. Winkler, Christie and Nurney's
new book on Woodpeckers does mention some species storing berries. I would be
very curious to hear what anybody else knows about this. If anybody would
like to come over and see this they are more than welcome.

thanks for any comments
Jim Rosso
Issaquah
206-392-8440