Drill Baby Drill

Female Yellow-bellied Sapsucker - Backyard bird, the Space Coast, Florida

This girl seems to like the Red Maple trees in my back yard, and dropped by for another taste today. Some folks seem to think that these birds poke holes in the trees to attract sugar loving insects, and they then come back to their holes a day or so later to eat the bugs attracted to the sap. But after watching this one for about an hour, I decided she was definitely drinking sap as she drilled. I suspect that if there had been bugs there she would likely have eaten them (as is the way with woodpeckers), but since there were no bugs she was happy to suck down some sap as she drilled.