Sphyrapicus nuchalis

Geographic Range

Red-naped sapsuckers ( Sphyrapicus nuchalis ) are native to the Neartic region. During the breeding season, these birds can be found as far north as central eastern British Columbia, Canada (just north of Prince George city) and southwestern Alberta, Canada. Their breeding range continues southward into the western United States along the Rocky Mountains in eastern Oregon and Washington, Idaho, and western Montana and Wyoming. They also spend their summers in northwestern New Mexico, Arizona, and eastern California.

They spend their breeding season (April-August) in the Rocky Mountains of Canada and in the northwestern United States in New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and California.

Red-naped sapsuckers migrate in late August to central and western Mexico as well as the far southwestern United States. Winter populations are located as for south as Guadalajara, Mexico and as far east as Monterrey, Mexico, and encompass the whole of Mexico westward to include Baja California. The sapsuckers nesting in more northern portions of the range are more likely to migrate to the southwestern United States whereas the sapsuckers that nested in the northwestern United States are more likely to migrate to the most southern areas of the Mexican range.

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic nearctic
  • native native

Habitat

Red-naped sapsuckers live in terrestrial environments. During their breeding season (April to August) they spend their time in coniferous and deciduous forests. Red-naped sapsuckers create their nests in a variety of different trees including juniper ( Juniperus ), pine ( Pinus ), birch ( Betula ), willow ( Salix ), maple ( Acer ), cottonwood ( Populus ),and fir ( Abies ) trees. They are seen most frequently in healthy aspen trees ( Populus ) and dead conifers during this nesting season in the forests but have also been seen nesting in some suburban areas, gardens, orchards, and the edges of forests. Their average elevation is 1500m but can range between 300-3500m.

In the winter months (late August- April), red-naped sapsuckers are found in habitats with a good supply of sap. The trees that are a good source of sap for the sapsuckers are cottonwood, aspen, maple, birch, willow and fir trees which can be found throughout the breeding and migration habitats.

• Habitat Regions
• terrestrial terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• forest forest

• Other Habitat Features
• suburban suburban

Physical Description

Red-naped sapsuckers are 20-23cm in length. On average they weigh 40 grams (range from 32-66 grams) and have an average wingspan of 40.6 centimeters (range 35-44cm). The red-naped sapsuckers have bilateral symmetry. These birds are named after the bright red feathers they have on the back of their neck (the nape) and on the top of their head.

The juveniles lack red feathers; they are grey and brown until they molt at age one. The juveniles typically molt in late summer. As a sexually dimorphic species, the females feature red on their throat and forehead but lack red on their nape. Female red-naped sapsuckers have grey and brown on their nape. Adult and juvenile red-naped sapsuckers have black and white markings moving laterally down their wings and dorsal area. Sapsuckers are also endothermic animals.

A close relative, red-breasted sapsucker ( Sphyrapicus ruber ), have red plumage that covers their head and continues laterally towards their chest. These birds lack the black and white head markings of red-naped sapsuckers. Williamson's sapsuckers ( Sphyrapicus thyroideus ) are mostly black with white patches on their wings, a small amount of red on their throat, and yellow on their belly.

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic endothermic
• bilateral symmetry bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes colored or patterned differently

Development

Red-naped sapsuckers follow the same development patterns as most birds. When the eggs are fertilized, the embryonic phase begins. During this time, the major organs (heart, eyes, brain) develop. As the embryos become larger, they grow wings and extremities. The eggs are typically white and measure 2.03 -2.79cm long and have a width of 1.52-1.78cm. The hatchlings utilize a small egg tooth on the outside of their beak to break the egg open. This egg tooth either falls off or is reabsorbed within a few days. As hatchlings (but not yet emerged from the egg), they rely on the remainder of the yolk for nutrients. When they have absorbed all the excess nutrients from the yolk, they exit the egg completely. As nestlings, they rely entirely on their parents for food. During this stage, they open their eyes, develop pinfeathers, and begin to learn how to walk and flap their wings. Red-naped sapsucker nestlings leave the nest after about 23-32 days post-hatching. As fledglings, they are still dependent upon their parents for feeding. Juveniles possess grey and brown feathers and can forage independently (although parents may occasionally offer food). They develop bright red feather colors when they are full-grown. Re-naped sapsuckers exhibit determinant growth and both males and females reach sexual maturity at around one year old.

Reproduction

Red-naped sapsuckers are typically seasonally monogamous. Each mating season, they return to the same tree as the previous year. This suggests the sapsuckers may be more attracted to the specific tree rather than the individual birds. When the males are courting the females, they will stick their red throats in the air and chase the females around the tree. The males will drum until females respond by squealing and indicating a readiness to mate.

• Mating System
• monogamous monogamous

Red-naped sapsuckers find their mates within three weeks of selecting their tree for the breeding season. Mating occurs once a year from the last week of April to the third week of May. Like all birds, sapsuckers employ internal fertilization. They have one brood per year and 3-7 eggs per brood. These eggs are white and weigh, on average, 3.8 grams. The males and females work together to make a nest. Males typically excavate more, while females work on the nest at night. The building process can last from 6 days to 4 weeks. If the pair is reusing a nest from the previous season, the processing time is shortened. Due to energy savings from prior excavations, reused nests tend to have one more egg than new cavities. Neither the gestation period nor the birth mass is recorded.

Once they are laid both parents will incubate the eggs for a range of 8-12 days until they hatch. It takes 23-32 to reach the fledgling phase and another 7-14 days to reach independence. Males and females reach sexual maturity at age one. Both males and females can start breeding the following season, but some individuals do not breed for a couple of years.

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous iteroparous
• seasonal breeding seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual sexual
• oviparous oviparous

Red-naped sapsuckers have both male and female parental investment. During the brooding stage, both sexes take turns for approximately 12-13 days until they hatch. Hatchlings are altricial and fully dependent upon their parents. Both parents presumably contribute to nestling feeding and protecting. During the brooding process the nest is rarely left unattended but this changes after hatching. The parents feed as often as every 2 minutes from dusk until dawn. Males are the sanitizers of the nest; they will prod at the hatchlings to get them to defecate. The males will then remove the fecal sac and take it to a designated tree called the sanitation post. This specific waste area can be used by the same male for multiple seasons. Both parents continue to feed and aid the fledglings until they reach the independent stage at 23 to 32 days, when the parental aid is decreased significantly.

• Parental Investment
• altricial altricial
• male parental care male parental care
• female parental care female parental care
• pre-hatching/birth
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
• pre-independence
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female

Lifespan/Longevity

The average life span of red-naped sapsuckers is 4.9 years, with the longest known lifespan being 6 years. These birds are not kept in captivity. Clark and Martin (2007) found that the survivorship from egg to hatchling was 80.5 percent, and then to fledging was 12.8 percent. Reasons for the demise of eggs and young include predation, lack of food, infertile eggs, low temperatures,and loss of parental care.

Behavior

Red-naped sapsucker flight pattern is described as intermittent – flying similar to a sine curve due to alternating flapping and non-flapping phases. They flex their wings when not flapping. These sapsuckers catch insects mid-flight. Common behaviors exhibited by these birds are preening, head-scratching, stretching, and bathing. These birds are terrestrial although they nest in trees, and diurnal.

During the excavation process, the males will roost in the nest, while the females will roost at the base of the tree under a branch. After the chicks have fledged the whole family will roost in a tree trunk and will not return to the nest until next season when it is time to mate, if they decide to reuse the nest. Sapsuckers are unique in their hole-drilling patterns and typically drill holes in trees in neat rows. Given their name, they feed on the sap coming from these holes. They will also sunbathe, which consists of putting their dorsal sides to the sun and opening their wings. They have several vocalizations such as drumming, soft nestling calls, and squealing.

Red-naped sapsuckers are not very social birds although several may group together before the breeding season. When the breeding season commences, males especially, can be aggressive towards conspecifics. To defend their mate or cavity, males can choose a bill-directing posture (bill-faced horizontal to another male bird), wing flicking, throat fluffing, and crest-raising. Given nest spacing of 100m or more and travel rarely exceeding 500m from their nests, direct conspecific interactions appear minimal when nests are established. Members of a pair are also rarely very close to each other unless they are excavating or brooding.

There is little recorded about the behaviors during the migratory season except that females are more likely to be in the southernmost areas, and that in the spring, males tend to migrate north in the spring about 2-3 weeks earlier than females.

• Key Behaviors
• terricolous
• flies
• diurnal diurnal
• motile motile
• migratory migratory
• sedentary sedentary
• solitary solitary
• territorial territorial

Home Range

Red-naped sapsucker home range changes in different areas of the country and is defined by the presence of sap wells and nests routinely maintained. The mean home range in Colorado is 1.67 ha, Oregon is 4 ha, Washington is 13.2 ha, and this does not differ between males and females. On average, these birds spend most of their time within 500 m of the nest. Flights beyond 500 m is for maintenance of sap wells. When near a mate or sap well, both sexes exhibit territorial behaviors.

Communication and Perception

Red-naped sapsuckers communicate primarily through vocalizations. There are three main types of calls that have been recorded by Kaufman (1996): mew, squeal and rrum. The mew (soft nestling sound) and squeal calls are higher pitched compared to the drum call which is deep in tone and is often accompanied by them tapping into a tree for sap and insects. The calls made by the sapsuckers are within the range of 1-2.5 kHz. Older nestling calls average 2.2 kHz.

Red-naped sapsuckers perceive the world like all other birds with visual(used in navigation, to recognize conspecifics, find prey, and to see potential predators. Tactile senses are used to find food and drum into trees. Acoustics are used in communication. Chemical perception channels are used in investigate trees and avoid predators. Birds have more than twice the number of photoreceptors per square millimeter than humans do, giving them incredible sight and the ability to see colors on the UV spectrum. They tend to use landmarks to navigate through the forests. Birds also have discs in their heads that reflect sound. They can usually hear in the 1-4 kHz range.

• Communication Channels
• visual visual
• tactile tactile
• acoustic acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual visual
• tactile tactile
• acoustic acoustic
• chemical chemical

Food Habits

Red-naped sapsuckers are omnivores. They feed on insects, sap, and some fruit. They drill small, neatly spaced horizontal holes into trees such as birch ( Betula ), cottonwood ( Populus ), fir ( Abies ), maple ( Acer ), willow ( Salix ), and especially aspen ( Populus ) trees. They then leave that tree and return later to eat the sap that comes out. These woodpeckers also eat insects that are drawn to the sap, especially ants. Sapsuckers also can catch some aerial insects in flight. These sapsuckers also eat a variety of berries and fruits in every season but rely on berries more in the winter months.

Diet does not differ between sexes. However, juveniles consume insects from the forest floor, tree trunks, and many more fruits and berries. In time, they gain skills to efficiently feed on sap.

• Primary Diet
• carnivore carnivore
  • insectivore insectivore
• herbivore herbivore
  • frugivore frugivore
  • eats sap or other plant foods
• omnivore omnivore

• Animal Foods
• insects

• Plant Foods
• fruit
• sap or other plant fluids

Predation

Red-naped sapsuckers and eggs in the nest are at risk of predation by black bears ( Ursus americanus ), deer mice ( Peromyscus maniculatus ), weasels ( Mustela ), house wrens ( Troglodytes aedon ), and gopher snakes ( Pituophis melanoleucus ). When these birds are flying or on the ground, they are at risk of predation by Cooper's hawks ( Accipiter cooperii ), sharp-shinned Hawks ( Accipiter striatus ), and northern goshawks ( Accipiter gentilis ). ]

Bears take adults and fledglings and weasels prey on nestlings or the roosting adults. Snakes feed on eggs and nestlings. To avoid predation, sapsuckers give loud warning calls and will sometimes swoop down and try to hit their predators. Sapsuckers can also dodge attacks from birds of prey.

Ecosystem Roles

Red-naped sapsuckers eat insects and some berries and they are eaten by large birds, snakes, and some mammals. These birds are susceptible to ectoparasites including biting lice ( Penenirmus auritus ), unidentified ticks, and louse flies ( Ornithomyia fringillina ).

Economic Importance for Humans: Positive

Red-naped sapsuckers do not impact humans. Birdwatching is a significant source of ecotourism that is valued at $108 billion annually. Although sapsuckers are not typically the main target for birdwatchers, they are part of the avian community that contributes to such watching endeavors.

• Positive Impacts
• ecotourism ecotourism

Economic Importance for Humans: Negative

Red-naped sapsuckers have been considered pests in Washington apple ( Malus ) orchards historically but, in recent years, there have not been any negative economic effects recorded.

Conservation Status

Red-naped sapsuckers are listed as a species of “Least Concern” on the IUCN Red List. They have no special status on the federal list, CITES, or the State of Michigan list. They are protected through the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. This act makes it illegal to take, kill, or possess the bird without a permit.

Threats to these sapsuckers includes habitat degradation and habitat loss due to livestock grazing, fire suppression, logging for firewood, and the harvesting of aspen ( Populus ) trees for furniture and chopsticks. Some breeders may also abandon their nests due to proximity to vehicular traffic. While their populations have been decreasing, there were 2,000,000 mature individuals in 2018.

Future research such as color banding would improve insight into the dispersal, survivorship, and regional population trends. Further research could also provide a better understanding of the relationship between red-naped sapsuckers and the trees.

Additional Links

Encyclopedia of Life

Contributors

Eve Carter (author), Radford University, Natalie May (editor), Radford University, Alexander McVicker (editor), Radford University, Karen Powers (editor), Radford University, Tanya Dewey (editor), University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

References

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