I was enjoying coffee in my backyard last week and spotted a pair of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers flirting and feeding on a birch tree in my yard. The Sapsucker is one of my favorite harbingers of spring. It's a species that shows up to let me know that winter is in fact over. One morning each spring I wake up to find our resident Hairy Woodpeckers replaced by this larger, more colorful relative passing through from the south. Once the Sapsucker has arrived, he will be followed shortly by a migratory cavalry of warblers, vireos, thrushes, and other neo-tropical migrants. I also think the Sapsucker may hold the title as the showiest of backyard bird species that we see at our house, with it's faint yellow markings on the breast and dramatic red throat and crown. The Sapsucker is the perfect aesthetic compliment to the Bloodroot that inevitably begins to bloom within a day of this bird's arrival. As I sat on my deck, watching and photographing these birds and admiring the buds in the garden, I could only wonder if there a sweeter season than spring??? At the moment anyway, the answer would be "No"...
