adult male; relatively little sexual dimorphism (California, USA; 2008-02-16)
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Red-breasted Sapsucker
Sphyrapicus ruber
Native Range:
North America
Notes:
a sapsucker of the Pacific region, this species plus the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Red-naped Sapsucker, and Williamson's Sapsucker constitute a related group of woodpeckers that specialize in drilling shallow tree holes from which they extract sap as an important part of their diet; each bird drills several parallel holes on a sapling and then visits the array repeatedly to collect sap; all of these sapsuckers can be told from other woodpeckers by a long white wingpatch, evident in flight or while perched.
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