When my friend Ann Nolte and I saw sapsuckers in her woods recently, those birds were the northern portion of their winter range and southern end of their nesting locale. Many nest in Alaska and Canada and hummingbirds use their sap wells as a source of food for their young as the phloem sap is similar in nutrition to flower nectar.
Male sapsuckers spend several weeks drilling out a nesting cavity, preferring trees with heart-rot fungus if possible as they are softer to drill into. Males are equally involved in tending the young, both parents spend weeks capturing insects and dipping them in sap – baby birds need protein as well as carbohydrates. This bird is totally migratory, although Ann and I saw ones staying in the southern part of their winter range, others range as far away as Panama.
