Two-year-old Olivier Gregoire borrows The Chronicle freelance photographer Peter McCabe’s camera in St. Lazare recently to get a better look at a male yellow-bellied sapsucker that had been announcing his presence daily at breeding grounds by hammering a steel drum with his beak.
Getting a closer look
Drumming to his own beat
The yellow-bellied sapsucker (right) has one of the most distinctive drumming patterns among woodpeckers indigenous to the Montreal area.
Upon their annual return to their breeding grounds, males and females announce their presence with impressive staccato blasts of pecking activity, usually ending with five or six clearly distinctive taps.
It is considered a medium-sized woodpecker, usually about seven to eight inches long.
An adult male has a red throat, an adult female a white throat.
Yellow-bellied sapsuckers can be seen breeding across Canada, east of the Rockies. These migratory birds all head south for the winter, some going as far as Central America.
Weather: Montreal, July 23rd 2008 / 20°C
/ Light rain
/ Wind: 20 Km/h / Humidity: 88 % 
Steven Guilbeault - Environment Column
Richard Cléroux - National Columnist
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