It was a week ago Tuesday that our latest winter storm slipped in from the Great Lakes. In general, the weather was quite calm and I wistfully looked out the windows of my office and watched as the first few flakes began to fall. It’s surprising how beautiful that moment can actually be. Whether it is the first flake of snow or the first drop of rain, the beginning of a storm is somewhat magical.
I wasn’t concerned about getting the driveway cleared because I didn’t have anywhere that I needed to be. I was a little concerned about the birds at my feeders, however. They have been going through a lot of seed this winter and I had no doubt that the arrival of a storm might have some of them a little extra anxious to stuff themselves with food before seeking out cover. I did manage to toss a little extra food out for them, but I knew it wouldn’t be until after school that I could do a proper job.
The school bell rang at 2:20 p.m. and after waving good-bye to the smiling faces of my honors biology class, I headed down to the kitchen door to start the process of shoveling and replenishing the food supply. At this point the sound of the snow shovel on the deck is something of a “Pavlovian bell” and the birds clearly understand that food is being put out for them. I had actually filled up the seed containers and was reaching for the doorknob when I finally glanced outside and stopped dead in my tracks. What, pray tell, was that?
Perched on the side of the larger of my two peanut feeders was a bird that didn’t quite register. Then, a simple heartbeat later, the synapses in my brain fired and the sensation of recognition and excitement flooded into my consciousness. It was a woodpecker, it had some brown feathers and it had a distinctive patch of red on the forehead. Somehow, there was a yellow-bellied sapsucker sitting on the feeder! It was amazing for several reasons, but the big one at the forefront of my mind was that this was a record-breaking species.
In 2018 I recorded 30 different species of birds in my yard. It was a particularly good year because there were red-breasted nuthatches hanging around, wild turkeys that came to feed on fallen seed and there were even pine siskins that had attached themselves to the thistle feeder. I knew that 30 species would be difficult to beat, but I had hoped that this would be the year to do it.
This winter has been identified as an “irruptive winter” by the folks who monitor the populations of nomadic winter finches up in Canada. Pine siskins, evening grosbeaks, common redpolls, pine grosbeaks and the crossbills were all predicted to fan out across the northern U.S. in search of food this winter. I have seen siskins, redpolls and evening grosbeaks this winter, but not in any large numbers at all.
Instead I’ve seen Carolina wrens. I saw a single pine siskin and a handful of redpolls, but together they only managed to get me in a position to tie the record. No red-breasted nuthatches this year, nor any wild turkeys … so far. But then the birding gods sent me a little birding bonus in the form of a young male sapsucker.
The yellow-bellied sapsucker is a common breeding bird in our area, but in winter it is described as being, “rare/sporadic/irruptive.” This is certainly the first time that I have seen a sapsucker at my winter feeders in the past 15 years. This sort of makes sense when you think of it. The sapsucker is a species that drills shallow holes in the bark of trees where flowing sap can collect. Then the bird will return to each one of these holes and slurp up the sugary liquid along with any small insects that might be there. Since trees go dormant in winter and the sap stops flowing, sapsuckers usually head south.
So this bird is so unusual that I think I’m going to save the natural history details for next week. However, I can still celebrate a new birding record of 31 species in my yard in the month of January, so that is fun. Just now, as I am wrapping up this column, I heard the deep, sonorous call of a common raven outside my window. I looked to the west and saw the giant bird land in the tall cottonwood tree on the west edge of my yard. The birding gods sent me a species to set a new record and then another species to help me celebrate!
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 23 years and this is the first time he has seen a sapsucker at a wintertime feeder. He has worked for the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and the Massachusetts State Parks and currently teaches high school biology and physics. Visit www.speakingofnature.com for more information, or head over to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.