When the veins of the birch overflow in the spring,
Then I sharpen my bill and make the woods ring,
Till forth gushes--rewarding my tap, tap, tap!
The food of us Suckers--the rich, juicy sap.
--C. C. M.
Many wild birds run up and down trees, and it seems to make little
difference which end up they are temporarily, skirmishing ever to the
right and left, whacking the bark with their bills, then quiet a brief
moment, and again skirmishing around the tree. Sometimes an apple
tree, says a recent writer, will have a perfect circle, not seldom
several rings or holes round the tree--holes as large as a buck shot.
The little skirmisher makes these holes, and the farmer calls it a
Sapsucker. And such it is. Dr. Coues, however, says it is not a bird,
handsome as it is, that you would care to have come in great numbers
to your garden or orchard, for he eats the sap that leaks out through
the holes he makes in the trees. When a great many holes have been
bored near together, the bark loosens and peels off, so that the tree
is likely to die. The Sapsucker also eats the soft inner bark which is
between the rough outside bark and the hard heart-wood of the tree,
which is very harmful. Nevertheless the bird does much good in
destroying insects which gather to feed on the oozing sap. It sweeps
them up in its tongue, which is not barbed, like that of other
woodpeckers, but has a little brush on the end of it. It lacks the
long, extensile tongue which enables the other species to probe the
winding galleries of wood-eating larvae.
Mr. William Brewster states that throughout the White Mountains of New
Hampshire, and in most sections of Northern Maine, the Yellow-Bellied
Woodpeckers outnumber all the other species in the summer season.
Their favorite nesting sites are large dead birches, and a decided
preference is manifested for the vicinity of water, though some nests
occur in the interior of woods. The average height of the nesting hole
from the ground is about forty feet. Many of the nests are gourd-like
in shape, with the ends very smoothly and evenly chiseled, the average
depth being about fourteen inches. The labors of excavating the nest
and those of rearing the young are shared by both sexes. While this
Sapsucker is a winter resident in most portions of Illinois, and may
breed sparingly in the extreme northern portion, no record of it has
been found.
A walk in one of our extensive parks is nearly always rewarded by the
sight of one or more of these interesting and attractive birds. They
are usually so industriously engaged that they seem to give little
attention to your presence, and hunt away, tapping the bole of the
tree, until called elsewhere by some more promising field of
operations. Before taking flight from one tree to another, they stop
the insect search and gaze inquisitively toward their destination. If
two of them meet, there is often a sudden stopping in the air, a
twisting upward and downward, followed by a lively chase across the
open to the top of a dead tree, and then a sly peeping round or over a
limb, after the manner of all Woodpeckers. A rapid drumming with the
bill on the tree, branch or trunk, it is said, serves for a love-song,
and it has a screaming call note.