By Ken Wilson

Welcome everyone to “Sapsucker-Days”. From places unknown, during our very coldest bursts of winter, the sapsuckers arrive. The beautiful and idiosyncratic Red-breasted Sapsucker drills rows of pencil-diameter holes through the outer bark of tree trunks, and into the sap layer. Shortly thereafter, the bird revisits these holes to lick up the oozing sap.

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Typically, you can walk for hours or days through our winter woods, and not find a single sapsucker. However, when temperatures drop into the 20s or lower for a stretch, these are the “Sapsucker-days.” You might even see two or three on a single trunk, even if you live in town. Milder temperatures eventually return, and the birds disappear. “Sapsucker-days” are history. Where they go, we do not know.