Subject: Red-breasted Sapsucker
Date: Feb 27 08:23:45 2004
From: W. William Woods - wwwbike at halcyon.com
It was great to hear the syncopated drum of the RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER
as I walked our tree farm trails. I had not seen this gorgeous fellow for
awhile, so I was intent on locating him, but I found a handsome male
PILEATED WOODPECKER instead. He was working over the remains of an old
alder snag that the Red-breasted Sapsucker had nested in two years ago.
The snag was now only half its original height, as a fierce storm had
collapsed the top half. Surely, I had not made a mistake; I really had
heard the sapsucker, hadn't I? And then I heard a sound I did not
recognize--It almost sounded like the Red-tailed Hawk's cry, but higher
and in a series of five or six distinct vocalizations on the same pitch. I
probably had heard it before, but could not put sound and bird together.
Then I heard a sound I did know. It was the Red-breasted Sapsucker's more
usual utterance, that to me sounds exactly like the minor-key whine of the
eastern gray squirrel (note--we have no eastern grays on our tree farm,
only Douglas Chickaree sqirrels.) And there the Sapsucker was at the top
of a small dead branch on a huge big-leaf maple tree, his gorgeous head
and breast gleaming in a sudden burst of sunlight, as though someone had
put a spotlight on him. Not only had I found the Red-breasted Sapsucker, I
had learned to recognize another of his distinct vocalizations.
Erin
Bill and Erin Woods Woods Tree Farm Redmond, WA U.S.A.
<wwwbike at halcyon.com>