{"id":24249,"date":"2014-06-04T04:41:06","date_gmt":"2014-06-04T10:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=24249"},"modified":"2014-06-04T04:41:06","modified_gmt":"2014-06-04T10:41:06","slug":"williamsons-sapsuckers-and-the-glory-hole-aspen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/04\/williamsons-sapsuckers-and-the-glory-hole-aspen\/","title":{"rendered":"Williamson’s Sapsuckers And The Glory Hole Aspen"},"content":{"rendered":"

During our Montana camping trip last week we found a dead aspen that had five nest holes in various stages of excavation and use.<\/p>\n

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\"aspen<\/p>\n

When we first noticed the tree and the holes\u00a0I positioned my truck a respectful distance away (using some sapling aspen between us and the tree to provide more security for the birds)\u00a0and it immediately became obvious that House Wrens were carrying nesting material to several of the holes.\u00a0\u00a0 Those holes can be seen in the bottom third\u00a0if the tree in this shot.<\/p>\n

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\"aspen<\/p>\n

Two of the holes were very close to each other and the one at lower right was incomplete.\u00a0 I was slightly surprised by its conical shape though I shouldn’t have been.<\/p>\n

The activity of the wrens at the holes\u00a0created a lot of interest from other species including\u00a0Tree Swallows, Mountain Chickadees, Yellow-rumped Warblers and Red-breasted Nuthatches that regularly flitted around in the\u00a0area.\u00a0 It was an exciting time for two\u00a0bird photographers though the light angle and shooting conditions were challenging.\u00a0 It was so exciting that I think of this tree as the “Glory Hole Aspen”.<\/p>\n

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\"williamson's<\/p>\n

But we were blown away when this guy showed up – a male Williamson’s Sapsucker!\u00a0 He spent most of his time at this spot where there were some sap wells (that you can’t quite see at this angle).\u00a0 We photographed him over two mornings and on the second day…<\/p>\n

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\"williamson's<\/p>\n

he spent time in and near one of the nest holes.<\/p>\n

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\"williamson's<\/p>\n

Possession of this hole was being contested by some very aggressive Tree Swallows and since the sapsuckers apparently hadn’t actually started nesting yet I suspect the male was claiming his\u00a0turf by his presence.\u00a0 I also suspect that all five of the holes were excavated by the sapsuckers even though wrens were using at least two of them.\u00a0 Williamson’s Sapsuckers usually excavate in conifers and to find their holes in aspen trees is somewhat unusual.<\/p>\n

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\"williamson's<\/p>\n

Unlike all other woodpeckers Williamson’s Sapsuckers exhibit spectacular sexual dimorphism (which I was unaware of at the time) so when this bird unexpectedly showed up I was momentarily flabbergasted.\u00a0 I remember saying to Mia “What the hell is that?” even though at the moment I said it I realized it must be the female sapsucker.\u00a0 It was.<\/p>\n

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\"williamson's<\/p>\n

She also spent some of her time at the sap wells.<\/p>\n

I was hugely disappointed by the fact that those sap wells were right next to the place on the tree where someone had scratched their initials and the date “2004”.\u00a0 I despise seeing anything carved\u00a0into trees by humans – to me it’s just another form of malicious vandalism of public property\u00a0(National Forest in this case)\u00a0except it’s even worse because this kind of graffiti can’t be repaired, it’s\u00a0unsightly, \u00a0it’s unhealthy for the trees because it allows fungal infections to take hold and it shortens the life span of the tree.<\/p>\n

Doing so in\u00a0National Forests and National Grasslands is illegal and punishable by fine\u00a0for precisely that reason.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During our Montana camping trip last week we found a dead aspen that had five nest holes in various stages of excavation and use.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,391],"tags":[2041,2045,137,2044,2032,211,220,2043,2040,2042,276,2039,2038],"class_list":["post-24249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-aspen","tag-carving-names-in-trees","tag-female","tag-graffiti","tag-idaho","tag-male","tag-montana-2","tag-national-forest","tag-nest-hole","tag-sap-wells","tag-sexual-dimorphism","tag-sphyrapicus-thyroideus","tag-williamsons-sapsucker"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/williamsons-sapsucker-5142-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-6j7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}