Subject: [Tweeters] surprising Seattle sapsucker situation
Date: Apr 29 10:11:15 2012
From: Dennis Paulson - dennispaulson at comcast.net


Hello, tweets.

I've just been watching an apparent pair of sapsuckers making holes in the same birch in the back yard that a pair used two years ago through a nesting cycle. Nothing like that happened last year, but this year here they are again. With a difference.

I had been watching a Red-breasted Sapsucker visit the tree a couple of times during this past week, but I was gobsmacked this morning when I put my glasses on a bird on the tree and realized it was a Red-naped Sapsucker! It's an entirely typical male Red-naped, not apparently a hybrid, and would look perfectly at home at Wenas Creek or in Spokane, yet it is behaving exactly as a bird that intends to breed here.

Right now, it's the bird spending a lot of time "preparing" the tree, and I saw the Red-breasted - presumably its mate - only once briefly this morning. It's time for nest excavation and pretty soon for egg laying, but there's no way of knowing from behavior which bird is which sex (unless I witness copulation, but I can't follow them around all day). However, the bird I'm watching is not a female unless some old Red-breasted genes give it a more extensively red throat.

If anyone is just aching to add Red-naped Sapsucker to their King County list, you are welcome to look for this bird. It's hanging out on a birch tree right behind a small pond in the back yard. You can come around the west (left) side of the house and go through a wood gate. Please don't advance too far into the back yard and potentially disturb the sapsucking sapsuckers, and please close the gate when you leave. It's of course much more interesting than just the occurrence of a rare species in Seattle.

Dennis
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Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net