Bird Guide › Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

How to Identify aYellow-bellied Sapsucker

Sphyrapicus varius · 7.1–8.7 in (18–22 cm)

Male vs. female

Male

Black and white barred above with a red forehead and red throat, a black chest crescent and a pale yellow belly.

Female

Same pattern but with a white throat instead of red.

Male photo: Rhododendrites / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Female photo: Charles J. Sharp / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Quick ID

A mottled black-and-white woodpecker with a red forehead and a long white slash down the wing.

Field marks

Long vertical white stripe along the folded wing
Red forecrown on both sexes
Black crescent across the chest
Neat horizontal rows of small holes drilled in bark

Similar species

Downy Woodpecker — Has a clean white back stripe and no red throat or wing slash.

Hairy Woodpecker — Larger with a plain white back and a long bill, and no chest crescent.

What it sounds like

A nasal, cat-like, descending "mew", plus an irregular stuttering drum unlike any other woodpecker’s.

Behaviour that gives it away

Drills orderly rows of shallow wells in bark and returns to drink the sap and eat the insects it traps — hummingbirds and other birds follow to use them.

Habitat & range

Deciduous and mixed forest; winters in woods, parks and yards in the Southeast.

When you'll see it

Depending on where in eastern, central and northern North America you are, it is a winter visitor and a passage migrant, seen mainly in spring and autumn.