Mr. Sapsucker

After watching the male yellow-bellied sapsucker feeding on the sap of a small bitternut hickory (seen in this post) I decided to go back for more photos. Sapsuckers live up to their name, feeding heavily on tree sap all year ‘round, primarily the various varieties of birch, maple, apple and hickory. The birds drill through the bark, creating rows of what are called sap wells –

Sap flows into the shallow holes where the birds feed on the sugary liquid. Sapsuckers have a series of trees where they’ve created sap wells; the birds fly from tree to tree feeding and tending their sap wells. The birds also feed on insects that are attracted to the sap as well as insects that they find on or beneath the bark.

As I approached the tree where I’d seen the bird, there he was –

After getting a lot of still images, I decided to take a video of Mr. Sapsucker –

He then flew over my head and disappeared. After 10-15 minutes he was back again and then few off in a different direction. Back again, and then off again. With that I decided to attempt to locate the other trees on his circuit. So I walked in concentric circles without knowing how far he may have gone each time or what species of tree I was looking for.

Well that was unsuccessful – after almost an hour I was back looking at the same tree where I’d last seen the bird, and there he was again. This time he was higher in the tree tending the sap wells there –

At 46 seconds into the video he quickly dropped lower on the tree to snatch an insect from the bark and then seemed to carry it back up where he stuffed it in a sap well before dismembering and eating the insect.

Sapsuckers have a fascinating way of making a living.

Wet Morning

A heavy mist was coming down but the Big Woods beckoned so off I went. Water glistened on every fallen leaf and every twig – which is a good thing if you’re a photographer because it makes colors look more saturated.

First up was a small flock of dark-eyed juncos that flushed from the forest’s shrubby understory. They went so suddenly that only a couple stayed to have photos taken – my reaction time with flushing birds is abysmal.

The juncos left behind two birds that were more interesting anyway. The first was hitching itself up the trunk of a tree – a brown creeper –

There was a second species that didn’t fly off with the juncos but instead flitted through the shrubs, a golden-crowned kinglet –

About a half mile into the Big Woods there was a commotion in a tree not far ahead. The commotion turned out to be two yellow-bellied sapsuckers disputing the possession of the series of feeding holes in a small tree –

The bird that drove off the other turned out to be a male sapsucker with his bright red crown and throat –

For a while I stood and watched him as he fed on the sap flowing into the shallow holes and the insects attracted to the sap –

Moving on there were the glowing wet leaves of a small American beech –

The next thing that caught my eye were the bright white conks of birch polypore growing on a dead black birch that had snapped off –

Speaking of fungi, the small bright red fruiting body of a scarlet cup was there among the fallen leaves –

Everywhere I went the wet moss fairly glowed –

As did the fronds of the fern called rock polypody –

Part of the loop I was walking followed an old woods road; the roadside ditch was full of water and in the water were amphibian eggs, those of a wood frog –

And of a spotted salamander –

As I completed the loop, a white-tailed deer stood watching –

Thus endith the morning.

An Evening at the Beaver Pond

It was a beautiful early spring evening; barely a breeze and warm, record setting warm in this age of a changing climate. The last ice on the pond had melted but a few days before and the beavers’ food cache showed signs of use. This was a good night to sit beside the beaver pond to see what was going on.

First up was a muskrat, the little look-alike of the resident beavers. Muskrats weigh but 2-5 pounds and therefore are much smaller than the beavers (35-65 pounds) whose ponds they share. A muskrat swam across the pond, then sampled some of the water lily stems in the beavers’ food cache –

After the muskrat disappeared from view a tree sparrow came by; by the time you read this it probably will have left for its arctic breeding grounds –

The next arrival was a mink; mink frequently make a meal of muskrats. It ran along the dam, then up on the shore and down again, then quickly entered the water where it swam back along the pond's edge –

After a while an adult beaver surfaced, swam over to the food cache and began feeding on some of the water lily stems stored there –

It fed for quite a while before noticing the human with a camera watching it. With that it stopped feeding and swam around its pond –

Quietly it submerged, not to reappear that evening. While I waited another muskrat appeared, swam to a raft of floating cattail stems and began eating –

It ate a bit, then swam over to a fallen tree and climbed up on a limb –

The muskrat disappeared into the water as a noisy pair of Canada geese flew over –

As the sun set at the end of a great evening it was time to leave and let the beavers do what beavers do and the muskrats do muskrat things.

The Gray Ghost

Over sixty years ago I spent most of a summer on a lake in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. The place we stayed was six miles from the nearest village and accessible only by boat. The boat we usually used was a 25-30 foot long work boat named “The Gray Ghost”. Whenever we went to town to get supplies, including 55-gallon drums of diesel fuel to run the generator that supplied us with electricity, or went somewhere for a day of surveying the surrounding forest it was on the Gray Ghost.

But that’s not the gray ghost that’s the subject of this post. Our topic here is another gray ghost, the male northern harrier. “Gray ghost” is the name commonly used by birders for adult male harriers since the predominant color of their backs and upper wings is a beautiful gray (female and juvenile harriers are predominately tan and brown).

Harriers are uncommon to rare during the breeding season in northcentral Pennsylvania, but are much more common in the winter and during migration. Here are some photos of a gray ghost hunting over a hayfield –

 

Harriers have lost much of their habitat as wetlands have been drained and development has converted grasslands to other uses – manicured lawns, parking lots, factories and big-box stores.

A Few from a Fallen Maple

A red maple tree died and began to decay, after some time the dead tree snapped about 10-12 feet from the ground. The upper portion fell to the ground and lay there for several years before I found it. Fallen trees or logs are great places to install a camera trap and this one has been productive of interesting videos ever since.

You can see some of the earlier videos elsewhere on In Forest and Field. Here we have a selection of the latest videos from the fallen maple –

The camera trap at the fallen maple has been slowly failing, perhaps from issues with the batteries, perhaps from problems with the control panel or the internal wiring – we’ll see.

On the Hunt

Although there may be more snowy days and there’s still a bit of snow on the ground, winter’s over and spring's begun. Skunk cabbage is in bloom, geese call overhead – it certainly is spring.

The air was calm, the sun was bright, there were but a few clouds in the sky and the temperature was just about freezing – what a wonderful day to hunt for the red-headed woodpeckers once again.

A fallen tree provided great place to sit, just about the right height and with a small tree for a backrest. It wasn’t long before one of the red-headed woodpeckers that call this patch of woodland home landed on a nearby limb.

 

Drat, a few small branches kept the camera from focusing on the bird; it focused on the branches instead –

 

From that branch it flew up to the end of a dead limb on a tall tree and proceeded to drum on that resonant limb to claim its territory –

But a few moments later the woodpecker flew down to a small eastern hophornbeam tree and spent several minutes there –

And then off it went to land high on a far distant tree –

It was time to sit and wait for it to return, but something intervened.

That something was a mink approaching on a fallen tree –

This must have been the most fearless mink ever – and most mink are quite bold – because it just kept hunting for a meal as this photographer followed it –

– pushing through clumps of dead grass, and exploring piles of fallen trees –

Until it alerted to prey and with a leap disappeared behind the log and didn’t emerge –

What a great day!!!