Subject: Noisy Sapsucker
Date: Jun 16 13:30:04 2001
From: JLRosso at aol.com - JLRosso at aol.com


A well timed job lay off has given me more time at home to work on my
doctoral studies. But our anticipation of sleeping late has been delayed as a
Red-breasted Sapsucker has decided that a piece of metal flashing on our roof
is the noisiest spot to drum on. It starts at about 5am. He continues
throughout the day. Every once in awhile it seems to work as another
sapsucker flies over and sits on the roof and watches him drill the metal.
I have watched Northern Flickers do the same thing but I was surprised when I
realized that this time it is the sapsucker. I have not read of other species
of woodpeckers claiming territory this way. (I assume it is claiming
territory - but I have no proof for this hypothesis. And yes, I am going into
the research part of my doctoral studies. But I will spare you the null
hypothesis.)

Jim Rosso
Sammamish
jlrosso at aol.com
http://birdcentral.net/index.htm