Several yellow-bellied sapsuckers visit our feeders. They play a role in the ecology of our homestead and the neighborhood.
Sapsuckers drill holes in trees, making little wells of sap. The wells provide nutrients to sapsuckers and to other animals, including hummingbirds, warblers, corvids, squirrels, chipmunks, mice, voles and all kinds of invertebrates. The biologists call those other animals “secondary consumers.” Deer lick sugars from the wells.
Sap is not exactly nectar, but it does contain sugars. Hummingbirds rely on the sapsuckers’ wells before the flowering plants start blooming.
The Wise Woman and I are waiting on hummingbirds, which usually arrive in March. While hanging the feeders, I wondered what other sources of nectar hummingbirds could find in early spring.
I found a paper in Ecology and Evolution that strikes me as a model.
Researchers from the University of Idaho and the U.S. Geological Survey staked out sapsucker wells in Colorado using three methods: direct observation, camera trapping and environmental DNA analysis.
They compared the methods. As you’d expect, the technology is a big step forward. Camera trapping involves motion-activated cameras that can record images day and night. Environmental DNA analysis involves swabbing the area around the wells and running the samples through an automated system.
The researchers’ list of animals that visited the sap wells in Colorado was interesting. I wish researchers in Georgia would do a similar study.
• Source: Rick Clawges, Shannon Blair, Jan Eitel, Leona K. Svancara, Lee Vierling and Kerri Vierling, “Sapsucker Wells as a Keystone Nutritional Resource: Evaluating Methods for Detection of Secondary Sap Consumers”; Ecology and Evolution, Oct. 9, 2025, 15(10):e72277. Doi: 10.1002/ece3.72277. It’s here:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12509469/
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