| Yellow-bellied
Sapsucker Identification Tips |
| (Credit: U. S. Geological Survey) |
| General
Information - Medium-sized woodpecker - Black head traversed by white postocular stripe extending down neck - Red forehead - Pale moustachial stripe offsets black chest and complete, thick black border to throat - Black back with faint white bars - Black wings, with white barring on flight feathers and bold white patch on wing coverts - Yellow breast fades to whitish lower belly and vent, and is streaked sparsely about the flanks - White rump - Dark tail with black and white barring on centralmost and outermost retricies - Very rarely shows red nape spot Adult male - Red throat Adult female - White throat Juvenile - Wings and back patterned more or less like adult - Head brownish and streaked, with weak postocular stripe and moustachial stripe - Reddish wash on forehead - Pale chest barred heavily with brown - Yellowish belly sparsely barred and streaked with brown - Juvenal plumage retained until first spring Similar species White patch on wing coverts sets sapsuckers apart from all other woodpeckers. Male Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are distinguished from male Red-naped only by the red nape spot and incomplete frame to red throat of Red-naped Sapsucker. Females are somewhat easier to distinguish, as they differ in these characters, as well as having quite different throat patterns (white in Yellow-bellied, red and white in Red-naped). It is worth noting that any sapsucker in juvenal plumage after late fall must be a Yellow-bellied. Beware of rare hybrid Yellow-bellied x Red-naped Sapsuckers, and the occasional Yellow-bellied Sapsucker which may show a red nape spot. |
| Return to Yellow-bellied Sapsucker page |
