Subject: Re: Sapsuckers, Inc., makers of Insta-Snag
Date: Jul 15 22:20:14 1998
From: "Darrel K. Whipple" - dwhipple at columbia-center.org


Dear Tweeters,

Thank you, Jim Rosso for the reference to Bent. I had forgotten that I had
purchased some volumes in that series in paperback from Dover Publications
some twenty-five years ago. I dug up the woodpecker volume, and sure
enough, found lots of neat stuff in the sapsucker pages.

Bent includes this quotation from W.L. Dawson (1923):

" . . . Instead of gleaning at random, as we might expect, the Sapsucker
makes careful selection, like a prudent forester, of a single tree, and
confines his attentions henceforth, even though it be through succeeding
seasons, to that one tree. Starting well toward the top of an evergreen, or
well up on the major branches of an orchard tree, the bird works
successively downward in perpendicular rows, whose borings are sometimes
confluent. In this way the bird secures an ever-fresh flow of sap, from
below. If carried on too extensively, or persisted in for successive
seasons, these operations will sometimes cause a tree to bleed fatally, or
at least to fall easy victim to insect pests. I have myself seen limbs of
mountain ash trees, pear trees, and English walnut, done to death in this
fashion. Yet it is only fair to say that but one or two trees in an orchard
may be attacked, and there is scarcely more danger of the trouble spreading
than there would be from successive strokes of lightning. . . ." (Arthur
Cleveland Bent, Life Histories of North American Woodpeckers, p. 149, Dover
edition, 1964)

Well, I guess if Dad wants to keep his mountain ash alive and healthy in his
yard, we ought to at least surround the trunk with wire mesh or something to
protect that part of the tree. Too bad for me; I'll miss the birds.

Darrel Whipple
Rainier, Oregon
dwhipple at columbia-center.org


At 10:04 AM 7/15/98 -0000, you wrote:
>When AC Bent did his monumental work, The Life Histories of North
>American Birds back in the early thirties (?), he was sponsored by the
>federal government who wanted to know the status of birds in America and
>also the economic impact of birds. As I remember, in the woodpecker
>volume he mentions periodically the damage done by woodpeckers. He does
>indicate that sapsuckers are capable of inflicting damage but that they
>usually picked older trees (higher sugar content?) and so the damage was
>marginal.
>
>Again this is from my aging memory so I would recommend checking the
>woodpecker volume if you can.
>
>I could just imagine the current government sponsoring a similar study of
>birds today!
>
>
>
>
>
>Jim Rosso
>Issaquah, Washington
>jrosso at mediaseek.com
>jlrosso at msn.com
>(425) 392-8440
>
>