Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Sphyrapicus varius · Woodpeckers
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Central Park, 26 October 2025
A Yellow-bellied Sapsucker in Central Park in October, a woodpecker of the northern woods that breeds in the birches and aspens of Canada and New England and winters in the southern states. The city's parks are a stopover and, for a few birds, a winter home.
A red cap and throat patch on a bird that drills neat horizontal rows of sap wells rather than the deeper excavations other woodpeckers make. It returns to maintain the same wells over time, feeding on the sap itself and on the insects the sap attracts, and a well-used tree can carry the scars for years. Hummingbirds follow sapsuckers in spring and drink from the wells before the flowers are out.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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