Crozet, VA 3/24-26/2022

All photos are © Marshall Faintich

Old Trail

I heard back from Steve Rottenborn about the unusual Sapsucker I saw on March 22. Steve is a Ph.D. biologist, expert birder, former Virginia resident, and now lives in California. I had contacted him back in 2017 when a local birder had reported a Red-naped Sapsucker that looked to me like a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker with red feathers on its nape. This was his response back then:

First, regarding the red nape - with YBSA and RNSA, no single character should be used for identification, but a YBSA with that much red on the nape is very unusual. The following is from a Birding article on sapsucker ID by Mlodinow, Barry, and Cox from 2006 (to which I contributed some info):

"Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers tend to lack red on the nape, though a surprising number - mostly males - have at least a couple red feathers there (Kaufman 1990). Of 365 adult Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers at FMNH, CMVZ, UWBM and PSM, 16 (4.4%) had some red nape feathers, with five (1.4%) displaying sufficient red that it likely would have been apparent in the field. S. Rottenborn (unpublished data) found five of 62 (8.0%) adult Yellow-bellieds to have some red on the nape, two (3.1%) of which were judged to have sufficient red as to be visible in the field. Of 120 adult male Yellow-bellied specimens studied by Robbins et al. (2005), 23 (19%) showed red on the nape, but only two (1.7%) of these were within the range of an adult male Red-naped. Among 243 first-cycle birds at the FMNH, UWBM, PSM, and ANS seven (2.9%) showed at least one red nape feather, including two females, and including two birds collected as early as October. Only one (0.4%) had enough red on the nape that it would likely have been evident in the field: a male collected on 18 October in Philadelphia (ANS #177237). None of the 55 first-cycle Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers reviewed by S. Rottenborn (unpublished data) had red nape feathers.

The above data suggest that Red-naped Sapsuckers lacking red on the nape between 1 October and 1 May would be exceptionally unusual, if such occur at all. On the other hand, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers seem to occasionally have a few red nape feathers, and as many as one to two percent have sufficient red as to be evident in the field (see figure 1). Though these are mostly males, some females and immatures also display this trait."


And his response to the one I saw on March 22nd:

Those are great photos, and the sapsucker is interesting. Not only does it have such a conspicuous red patch on the nape, the red feathers of the throat are encroaching into the black frame on the lower sides of the throat. That may be within the range of variation in pure Yellow-bellied (albeit a very small percentage), but if I saw that bird here in California, I would wonder about the possibility of a hybrid with Red-naped. It's impossible to know, of course, but birds like that sure make things interesting.

Even inspecting it in the hand would not allow one to tell whether it is a hybrid or not. With these birds, given that they are so closely related and share a lot of genes, it's not possible to distinguish extremes from hybrids definitively. The best we can do in many cases is to call something a possible hybrid, or a probable hybrid. In this case, given that your bird was in Virginia, I would guess that it is most likely an extreme individual of a Yellow-bellied rather than a hybrid - but no one can know for sure.

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Adult male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (3/22/2022)

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Adult male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (3/22/2022)

Old Trail; March 24

I was eager to try and re-locate this Sapsucker, but there were heavy thunderstorms all night long, and dense fog all this morning. Still, I was able to log 27 avian species, but not a single Sapsucker.

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Ring-necked Duck

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Yellow-rumped Warbler

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Downy Woodpecker

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Red-bellied Woodpecker

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Northern Cardinal

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Field Sparrow

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Carolina Wren

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Carolina Wren

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Carolina Wren

Old Trail; March 25

Same drill as yesterday, but at least the fog had cleared. I ended up with 20 to 25 avian species, including a few that I had not seen yesterday.

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Wood Ducks

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Wood Ducks

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Turkey Vulture

Old Trail; March 26

Colder weather moved in with strong winds. I saw 23 avian species this morning, but once again, no Sapsuckers.

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Wood Duck

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Red-shouldered Hawk


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