The last day of November was sunny, bright, and chilly \u2013 and a good day for Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers. Maybe they\u2019re just easier to see now that most of the leaves on the trees are gone \u2013 though even now it\u2019s not always that easy. Seeing one is like seeing a part of a tree come to life in the shape of a bird. The barred patterns on their wings, back and tail, in several subtle shades of black, white, gray and buff, blend in well with the muted colors of the season, and I always associate them with the fall and winter since that\u2019s when we have them here. But in the right light, the black-and-white striping on the face, the crimson throat and head of a male, and even the warm yellow of the belly shine like brilliant accents against a winter background. And often they\u2019ll give away their presence with a nasal, mewing call, or with their steady tapping on a trunk.<\/p>\n
This afternoon I heard a funny call that I didn\u2019t recognize \u2013 something like djeer-djeer-djeer-djeer,<\/span> sort of a fast, rolling call \u2013 and it turned out to be a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker that was flying from one tree to another and calling as it flew. When it got to the second tree, it gave its more familiar mewing neeah<\/span> before it started tapping on the trunk, and another Sapsucker nearby seemed to answer with the djeer-djeer<\/span> call. <\/p>\n Of course, Sapsuckers (like most birds) have many more vocalizations than the ones most of us are familiar with, and this one was new for me. After looking it up in several sources, I think it was probably the call The Sibley Guide to Birds<\/span> describes as one sometimes given in flight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The last day of November was sunny, bright, and chilly \u2013 and a good day for Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers. Maybe they\u2019re just easier to see now that most of the leaves on the trees are gone \u2013 though even now it\u2019s not always that easy. Seeing one is like seeing a part of a tree come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}