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  In flight

Woodpeckers

Williamson’s Sapsucker

Sphyrapicus thyroideus

• epic
• 42 km/h
• Least Concern

The male and female look so different that scientists classified them as two separate species for over 20 years.

Population

~210,000–400,000 mature individuals globally (BirdLife/Partners in Flight estimate, ~2020); population trend decreasing

Habitat

Coniferous and mixed conifer-deciduous montane forests of western North America (Rockies westward), favoring drier, relatively open woodlands of ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir, lodgepole pine, grand fir, subalpine fir, and western larch; typically absent from moist western redcedar/hemlock forests; elevation range roughly 45–3,580 m per BirdLife

Fun fact

Male and female Williamson's Sapsuckers look so different — the male glossy black with white wing patches and a yellow belly, the female barred brown-and-black with no white wing patch — that 19th-century ornithologists described them as two separate species: the female named Picus thyroideus in 1852, the male named Picus williamsonii in 1857 (with the female's plumage separately dubbed the "black-breasted woodpecker" by Cassin), until Henry Henshaw linked both sexes to the same nest in 1873.

Range

Western North America from British Columbia south through the Rocky Mountain and Pacific states to northern Mexico; partially migratory — northern/high-elevation breeders winter south to central Mexico while some populations are year-round residents; breeding range overlaps extensively with Red-naped and Red-breasted Sapsuckers

Diet

Primarily tree sap and phloem drilled from shallow "sapwells" in conifers year-round; shifts heavily to insects (carpenter ants, bark beetles, aphids, flies) during the breeding season to feed nestlings; adds fruit and seeds (e.g., madrone, juniper, pinyon pine berries) in winter

Size

0.23 m

Wingspan

0.43 m

Lifespan

7 years