Confusing Sapsuckers and Other Spring Birds in Lower Manhattan

 

This bird seemed to be a sapsucker but didn’t have any red on its head.

On April 20, I was passing through City Hall Park with a friend and happened to see maybe 10 sapsuckers flying around the trees. I didn’t have my camera with me but did manage to get a photo of one of them with my cell phone. When I looked closely I didn’t see red on its head, unlike the other ones I have seen before. I thought maybe it was a juvenile.

Although there are thousands of yellow-bellied sapsucker holes in the trees in City Hall Park, I rarely see the birds responsible for making the holes there. A sapsucker is a type of woodpecker that makes lines of small holes across the bark of many different kinds of trees, and then licks up the sap that wells up, along with any bugs attracted to the sap. Over time, some trees are almost entirely covered with these holes, since the holes don’t close up, and new ones may be added every year. 

Sapsucker holes are lined up in horozontal rows.

About a week later I went on Monday morning Battery Park City bird walk with Marieke Bender and there were a number of sapsuckers around the Cedar of Lebanon trees in the South Cove. The markings on their backs provide a lot of camouflage when they are against the bark, but red feathers on the head will catch your eye.  

This sapsucker had red on its head but not its throat so I figured it was a female. 

The male yellow-bellied sapsuckers usually have red on their heads and throats.

Then on April 30 I went on the bird walk in The Battery with Gabriel Willow. We saw several yellow-bellied sapsuckers in the Labyrinth there chasing each other around on the Atlas cedar trees. And one of them had a black head. Like the one I saw in City Hall Park. Gabriel told us that some adult females are a black-crowned variety – maybe one in ten. It's mentioned in the Sibley app. Interesting to learn.

Meanwhile we were treated to a good look at Astoria, the lonely female wild turkey who seems to be roaming the city in hopes of finding a mate. People were reminded of Zelda, a different wild turkey who lived in The Battery for quite a few years a while back.

Elsewhere in The Battery, some house sparrows were making a nest in a London Plane tree hole.

And a pair of mockingbirds had a nest in a tree by the Farm.

The mourning doves had already moved out of their nest in the Labyrinth. 

White-throated sparrows were still around, after spending the winter in the city. They were singing their wonderful high-pitched song, but will soon be moving north to breed.  

Other birds were just stopping by on their way north.

Including an Ovenbird.

And a Ruby-crowned Kinglet on the Atlas cedar.

Further uptown, in the Trinity Church graveyard, there was a Veery.

And a male Common Yellowthroat.

Fun to see so much springtime life in lower Manhattan.