Saw a wood pecker pecking on a sap bucket this morning, heard it earlier in the week but did not see it. Anybody else ever hear or see a wood pecker pecking on a bucket? I am going try and film it next time.
Saw a wood pecker pecking on a sap bucket this morning, heard it earlier in the week but did not see it. Anybody else ever hear or see a wood pecker pecking on a bucket? I am going try and film it next time.
No. Have had lots of troubles with sap suckers(birds) and re squirrels. A couple of the red squirrels have gone to heaven. Pellet guns are nice and quiet and the homeowners want them gone too. When I asked if they liked them(some people do) I was told to shoot as many of the ***###@@@ thing as I see.
We don't have any buckets at PMRC, but at home we have a metal-bestos chimney or our gas fireplace. For a few years we had a resident woodpecker who would get up there and bang away all day long. I finally got up on the roof and put some "Tangle-Foot" (really sticky stuff) all around the base of the chimney. A little while later I heard one loud bang....then it stopped. He never came back.
Dr. Tim Perkins
UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
https://mapleresearch.org
Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu
Any idea what kind of wood pecker? The sap suckers like our metal barn roof. It's persisitent and loud enough to drive you bonkers sometimes. I was told they bang on metal to attract mates and mark their territory.
“A sap-run is the sweet good-bye of winter. It is the fruit of the equal marriage of the sun and frost.”~John Burroughs, "Signs and Seasons", 1886
backyard mapler since 2006 using anything to get the job done from wood stove to camp stove to even crockpots.
2012- moved up to a 2 pan block arch
2013- plan to add another hotel pan and shoot for 5-6 gallons
Thinking small is best for me so probably won't get any bigger.
The Woodpeckers we see are the Downy, Hairy, Red Bellied and the Pileated. They will a drum on resonant objects (like pails, metal chimneys etc.) to attract mates and establish territory. A Birder (which I am not) can tell you which woodpecker you are hearing by the drum pattern. They seem to like drumming in the morning best. But - will do it anytime during the day and both the male and females do it. ---Mike----
Mike
2x5 F.O. Tank Arch/Wood Fired
2x5 Mark/Josh Custom Pans
12 x 14 Sugar Shack
55 Sure Taps - 100 Unsure Taps
Every morning at sunrise the crows peck on our metal chimney! Speaking of wood peckers the sapsuckers are at it again. They have almost girdled one of my 12" sugar maples. They actually killed one of my reds a few years back.
1000 taps on vac down to 100+ buckets 99% sugars
2x5 SL Hi-Output Raised Flue Corsair evaporator
SL Short bank press with CDL diaphragm pump
Leader Micro 1 RO for 2024
Constantly changing
2010:36 gal 2011:126 gal 2012:81 gal 2013:248 gal 2014: 329.5 gal 2015:305 gal 2016:316 gal 2017:258 gal 2018:147 gal 2019:91 gal 2020:30 gal 2021:30 gal 2023:50 gal Total since 2010: 2047.5 gal
Tapping the same trees my great, great and great grandfathers tapped.
Pileated woodpeckers are quite distinctive - what Woody Woodpecker was based on. Well known "laughing" call - lots of sound files can be found online - and really large dramatic birds. The underside looks like piano keys when they fly. They are our favorite bird and our woods are very full of them - we've thought about integrating one into our farm logo.
We leave quite a few standing dead trees for them to nest in - they spend a lot of time on those and don't seem to do any damage to anything we care about. Their nests are also easy to find - large openings that often face east. We had one pair raise chicks right off our driveway and it was quite a sight to watch the birds poking out of the tree and the parents regularly flying back to feed them. Many other birds and even other animals will move into their cavities so they support a lot of diversity in the woods and help control a lot of pests.
I can't say I've ever seen them touch anything other than trees by us.