Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Sphyrapicus varius

HOW TO IDENTIFY:

* Length: 7.75? inches
* Medium-sized woodpecker
* Black head traversed by white postocular stripe extending down neck
* Red forehead
* Pale moustachial stripe offsets black chest and complete, thick black border to throat
* Black back with faint white bars
* Black wings, with white barring on flight feathers and bold white patch on wing coverts
* Yellow breast fades to whitish lower belly and vent, and is streaked sparsely about the flanks
* White rump
* Dark tail with black and white barring on centralmost and outermost retricies
* Very rarely shows red nape spot

Adult male:

* Red throat

Adult female:

* White throat

Juvenile:

* Wings and back patterned more or less like adult
* Head brownish and streaked, with weak postocular stripe and moustachial stripe
* Reddish wash on forehead
* Pale chest barred heavily with brown
* Yellowish belly sparsely barred and streaked with brown
* Juvenal plumage retained until first spring

Similar species:

White patch on wing coverts sets sapsuckers apart from all other woodpeckers. Male Yellow-bellied Sapsukers are distinguished from male Red-naped only by the red nape spot and incomplete frame to red throat of Red-naped Sapsucker. Females are somewhat easier to distinguish, as they differ in these characters, as well as having quite different throat patterns (white in Yellow-bellied, red and white in Red-naped). It is worth noting that any sapsucker in juvenal plumage after late fall must be a Yellow-bellied. Beware of rare hybrid Yellow-bellied x Red-naped Sapsuckers, and the occasional Yellow-bellied Sapsucker which may show a red nape spot.