I've had an occasional YBS in my yard in NoVA the last two years and have never seen any signs of their sap holes. I've seen them in a neighbor's American Holly bush and on one of my trees that has Virginia Creeper growing on it--so I surmise both of those berries are on the menu. I first identified one on one of my suet feeders.
In October I saw one mixing it up with a Northern Mockingbird in Oldtown Alexandria.
Adam Beidler
Vienna, Va
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 28, 2012, at 8:41 PM, PETER OSENTON <roadwarrior71...> wrote:
>
> Hi Tyler and everyone,
>
> I have seen YB Sapsuckers eat Persimmon in my yard two different times. As others have noted, they eat Poison Ivy berries too. Matter of fact, I've recorded at least 15 different species of birds (Yellow-rumped Warblers, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Dark-eyed Juncos White-throated Sparrows and others) eating Poison Ivy berries as it's a very important food item for many birds.
>
> Peter Osenton
> Jessup, Md. [AA Co.]
>
> --- On Wed, 11/28/12, James Tyler Bell <jtylerbell...> wrote:
>
> From: James Tyler Bell <jtylerbell...>
> Subject: [MDBirding] Sapsucker behavior
> To: "MDBirding" <mdbirding...>
> Date: Wednesday, November 28, 2012, 11:32 AM
>
>
> We have a large persimmon tree next to our lab building here in Edgewater. Perhaps the same Yellow-bellied Sapsucker likes to hang around the tree in the winter. Today, I noticed the sapsucker up in the very top of the tree eating a persimmon. I've always seen them tapping wells in trees then attending them later but never seen this particular behavior before. Has anyone seen this?
>
> Birds of North America online has this about their diet but nothing specific about fruit species consumed:
>
> Major Food Items
> Sap (from variety of perennial plant species), insects, also bast (inner bark [cork cambium, phloem] and cambium layers), fruit, and seeds (Beal 1911).
>
> Quantitative Analysis
> Based on analysis of 313 stomach contents (including some Red-naped Sapsuckers; Beal 1911), 50.7% plant matter and 49.3% animal matter; of plant material, 28.1% of total food matter fruit (71.3% of diet in Nov), 16.5% cambium, and 6.1% miscellaneous plant parts; of animal matter, 34.3% of total food matter ants (Formicidae; 68% for May�Aug), 6.0% beetles (Coleoptera), 5.4% spiders (Araneida) and miscellaneous insects (mayflies [Ephemeroptera]; stoneflies [Plecoptera]; grasshoppers, crickets and tree hoppers [Orthoptera]; caterpillars and moths [Lepidoptera]; and flies [Diptera]), 2.6% wasps (Hymenoptera), and <1% true bugs (Hemiptera). Diet appears to shift according to time of year (see Food selection and storage, below). Cambium ingestion peaked in Apr, representing 48% of diet at that time, but analyses conservative since much fluid passes almost immediately out of stomach prior to stomach-content analysis (Beal 1911). Sap probably makes up 20% of diet annually (Short 1982), but at times may be 100% of diet (L. S. Eberhardt pers. comm.).
>
>
> Tyler Bell
> <jtylerbell...>
> California, Maryland
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