Tweets,

I strongly suspect my sapsucker pair are on eggs, as either the Red-naped or the Red-breasted is on the birch tree just about all the time, but not both of them together. The Red-naped has so far spent more time on the tree today, judged from the many times I scrutinized it. I wish I had the time to document the visits completely. Incubation bouts vary from 9-50 minutes, according to the account in Birds of North America, so this changing of the guard could be a consequence of relieving each other on the nest. I don't know yet where the nest is. The dead branch to the west of us that they nested in two years ago was cut down by the property owner.

Just as two years ago, I watched the Red-breasted a few minutes ago fiercely chase a Downy Woodpecker out of the yard. I don't know why such antagonism. Possibly Downies feed from the sap wells as a lot of other birds do, but I don't know. I do know that an Eastern Gray Squirrel has already been sucking the sapsucker's hard-earned sap, and I hope it doesn't get too fond of it. Two years ago Black-capped Chickadees and Anna's Hummingbirds visited it, as well as squrrels.

I'll be out of town May 1-9, so I won't know what's going on during that period. When they were feeding young two years ago, the birds visited the tree very often, seeming to rub the insects they had caught briefly in the sap. This presumably introduces the young to sap feeding and sap digestion.
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Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net