Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

["Utah Birds" <utahbirds at excite dot com>]

Just wanted to make sure that you folks in the Moab area get a chance to see an (easy-to-tell) Yellow-bellied Sapsucker on its way to Canada for the summer.  Here an e-mail to the Utah "birdnet" about this bird in Devil's Canyon Campground south of Monticello.  I hope some of you get to see it.

Best Wishes,
Milton Moody
utahbirds.org webmaster

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e-mail from Mark Stackhouse - 20 Mar 2004
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Sorry that this is a bit late, but I just got back from a tour to see the Gunnison Sage-Grouse (already 6 males on a lek ENE of Monticello).

The most unusual birds we saw were a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker at Devil's Canyon Campground south of Monticello and a Golden-crowned Sparrow at the Blanding sewage treatment ponds. The sapsucker was along the self-guided nature trail (at stop 12, but it was moving around the area) at the very end of the left-hand fork (from the entrance) of the campground road. It's a first-year female, and as such is easy to recognize and separate from Red-naped Sapsucker (also in the area). It has a completely white chin and throat (bordered in black), and although it is mostly in adult plumage, the black breast band is still incomplete, and appears speckled black with tan feather-edgings. Both of these marks are good for telling Yellow-bellied from Red-naped (female Red-naped should have some red in the throat and the black breast band should be complete no later than January of the first year). The Golden-crowned Sparrow was an immature bird in a flock of  hite-crowned Sparrows in the brush along the east side of the sewage ponds  bout a mile south of Blanding on US 191.

Another item of note was the very large number of Pygmy Nuthatches at Devil's Canyon. We didn't, however see any Acorn Woodpeckers.

Good birding!

Mark

Mark Stackhouse
Westwings, Inc.
westwings@sisna.com




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