Red-naped Sapsucker
Sphyrapicus nuchalis · Woodpeckers
Banding codeRNSA
Keys to identifying it
1Size & shape
About 8.5 in long.
2Color pattern
- Red forehead and red patch on the nape
- Bold black-and-white face stripes
- Long white stripe on the folded wing
3Habitat & season
Aspen groves and streamside forests
In northern Utah: summer.
Seen most often in October.
Share of the region’s research-grade iNaturalist bird observations each month, scaled to this bird’s peak. Highlighted bars are its peak months.
4Voice
Mewing calls; drumming that slows into an irregular stutter.
“a stuttering, Morse-code drum”
iNat 168421546 by wweellll · Whatcom County, WA, USA · CC BY
Know it
- Drills neat rows of wells in bark and returns to lap up the sap.
- Hummingbirds and other birds drink from its sap wells.
- Its drumming starts fast and breaks into an irregular, Morse-code stutter.
- Has a brush-tipped tongue for lapping sap.
Often confused with
Hairy Woodpecker- Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
- Red-breasted × Red-naped Sapsucker
From iNaturalist identification data for northern Utah.
From Wikipedia
The red-naped sapsucker is a medium-sized North American woodpecker. Long thought to be a subspecies of the yellow-bellied sapsucker, it is now known to be a distinct species.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0