Back to Woodpeckers one more Day

To finish up with Woodpeckers, we go first to Turkey Creek on the East Side of the Rincon Mountains in Southern Arizona for the Red Naped Sapsucker. I have also found and photographed the Red Naped Sapsucker in Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, Washington; the Galiuro Mountains in Southern Arizona, and in Ramsey Canyon in the Huachuca Mountains of Southern Arizona. The Red Naped Sapsucker is found in the Western US and Mexico, wintering in Mexico with summers in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and the northwest. They are very similar in appearance to the Yelow-bellied Sapsucker of the east except they have a little more red and a little less white in their plumage. They typically nest in dead trees in mixed forests. They bore holes in living trees to get sap and any insects that may be present.

Red Naped Sapsucker: Turkey Creek, Arizona

The Pileated Woodpecker is the largest of the woodpeckers at 16.5 inches. It is found primarily east of the Missouri/Mississippi Rivers swinging over to Western Canada and back down into Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. It lives in mature forests feeding primarily on carpenter ants, wood boring beetle larvae, fruit, and nuts.

Pileated Woodpecker: Colorado State Forest