When the leaves begin to fall I notice more features of the trees. Here’s a tree in Schenley Park with two horizontal lines of holes on its trunk.
I know who made these holes. Do you?
Leave a comment with your answer.
(photo by Kate St. John)
When the leaves begin to fall I notice more features of the trees. Here’s a tree in Schenley Park with two horizontal lines of holes on its trunk.
I know who made these holes. Do you?
Leave a comment with your answer.
(photo by Kate St. John)
Yellow Bellied Sapsucker?
Am not sure on this, but would guess maybe a pileated woodpecker. Anxious to find out the correct answer.
I see these lines all the time over there and have never thought to consider that it was something else. I always figured it was some odd tree trait or else the Park marking them some how because they are always in pairs and so straight. Neither of those possibilities seemed all that likely though so I’ve never been all that satisfied. There a lot especially where the Falloon Trail cuts down to the lower Panther Hollow Trail if I remember right.
I just spent about 2 hours in that exact area yesterday too. I probably would have zipped right through it except for your post about chickadees not too long ago. I heard some of them and then saw a new bird for me. I couldn’t identify it, it was brown and spotted on it’s back, clung to trees like a woodpecker, but were smaller than a downy, and had a pretty thin looking beak. The only reason I even found them was because they made this whistling call. Anyway, still didn’t ID them until I got home and a friend was excited for me because apparently they are plenty common, but hard to spot and here I’d seen three or four. I’ll leave the name of it out for now for anyone who likes to guess at these things. There is a picture of one of these guys mixed in with some others from yesterday at http://www.flickr.com/photos/87087391@N00/sets/72157625130044104/detail/
yellow bellied sapsucker?
I believe they were made by a yellow-bellied sapsucker. Google is a great thing 🙂
A yellow-bellied sapsucker.
I believe it was a Red-bellied Woodpecker. I have the same hole pattern around my Hardy Pecan trees.
Mark Muller
It looks like the handiwork of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers.
Such a beautiful day to be outside! Warblers and many other birds are really busy today!
Bumble and honey bees are super active in my flower bed!
Yes, these are yellow-bellied sapsucker holes. Sapsuckers drill holes in rows, then wait for the sap to rise into the holes. They lick the sap or they eat the insects that visit the sap. Hummingbirds often visit sapsucker holes too.
These holes are old. The sapsuckers haven’t arrived yet on migration — at least I haven’t seen them yet.
And…. NDPeter’s bird is a brown creeper. Check out the link to his photos for some nice shots of raccoons and hawks at Schenley Park.
Peter gave a great description! (Great pics too!)
I was going to guess brown creeper before I saw the pic. I saw one at home this morning. They are just too cute! 🙂 I always enjoy getting to see one.
Well I did not see the culprit making the holes, just made an assumption it was the Red Bellied Woodpecker doing it.
I’ll have to keep my eyes open, I have never seen a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and never would have guessed it was a bird migrating through my area.
I saw a sapsucker in North Park on Friday. I got excited to see it. I watched it eat a berry. (Is that typical for sapsuckers in the fall?) I love to hear them hammer on trees in the Allegheny National Forest in the spring. Way different from other woodpeckers! They are very common at Loleta Campground up there.
Kathy, do you realize that the Allegheny National Forest is being subjected to Marcellus gas drilling? The bird & animal habitat there is being destroyed.
There is a pic on here of the Allegheny National Forest being industrialized. So sad. http://www.pacwa.org/What-ifs.html
Pics on the above link also show Moshannon State Forest in Northcentral PA, which is not too far from me. Out of 43,000 acres, EOG (plans on developing 24,000 of it!!!! 🙁
Yes, it is very distressing. I keep track on Penn Future. They are a good organization also.