Subject: [Tweeters] Red-breasted Sapsucker and Pileated Woodpecker at
Date: Nov 16 15:09:33 2009
From: Kevin Purcell - kevinpurcell at pobox.com


On Nov 12, 2009, at 7:41 PM, Hans-Joachim Feddern wrote:

> RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKERS are year round residents here in Twin Lakes
> and I suspexcted breeding in my neighborhood this year. I did
> observe one excavating a nesting hole right at the parking lot for
> Dumas Bay earlier this year.
> I do have at least one individual, which has drilled neat rows of
> sap holes in one of my trees, two of my neighbors and more at the
> neighbors across the street.


I'm sure they are much more common in less than urban areas but in
urban Seattle they're not that common (even less common in a place
with no conifers like the Fill). And we are only 2 miles or so as the
sapsucker flies from the Fill here hence the wondering if there might
be a connection.

There is at least one tree in Volunteer Park though that does show
signs of being drilled for sap holes but I don't know when that
happened but as I did see them drilling holes in the cold eruption
(there were at least four on Capitol Hill and I saw two interacting in
the park with their "I can fly slower than you" spiraling interaction
around the tree.

The same with the Pileated Woodpecker. A common bird you would think.
You'd think one might see more often (e.g. when I was at Microsoft I'd
see one regularly on my walk through the woods around the campus after
lunch) but so far I've seen Pileated on the Hill only twice in perhaps
10 years of paying (some) attention and only once in two years with a
lot of attention at VP. I suspect it's mostly the lack of really good
big snags for food and nesting despite the quite high tree density
(for an urban area).

Urban birding ... it's a whole different game :-)
--
Kevin Purcell
kevinpurcell at pobox.com
twitter: at kevinpurcell