Two Unusual Woodpeckers

     Everyone knows woodpeckers drill into trees to get invertebrate animals that live in the wood.  And that woodpeckers have special body parts that help them get their foods from under tree bark.  They have stiff tail feathers and two toes on the backs of their feet to help prop them upright on the trees.  They have sharp beaks and thick bone in their skulls that allows them to chip into the wood without injury to their brains or anything else.  And they have long tongues that are anchored to their foreheads, wrap over their skulls under the skin, and fill their beaks.  When woodpeckers chisel into insect tunnels, those long, sticky tongues snare the insects and pull them out so the woodpeckers can swallow them. 
     All woodpeckers have that equipment, which shows their relationship from one ancestor of them all, including two unusual woodpeckers- northern flickers and yellow-bellied sapsuckers.  Those latter two species developed unique ways of getting food without competing with their relatives.
     Northern flickers, at some time in their past, discovered they can get much food from ant hills in the ground.  These woodpeckers peck into ant colonies and run their long, sticky tongues into the tunnels to catch the ants and their eggs, larvae and pupae.  Flickers repeatedly run their tongues into various burrows until they are full of ants and need to fly to a tree to rest and digest.
     And interestingly, though most woodpeckers have black and white plumage patterns, flicker feathering is mostly brown on top with darker streaking to blend into their surroundings of grass and soil while feeding.  That brown feathering is a departure from the usual black ad white woodpecker plumages to fit into a new habitat that only the flickers use, therefore lessening rivalry for food with their relatives.
     Yellow-bellied sapsuckers have the noted habit of punching rows of holes into tender bark on young trees.  Of course, sugary sap leaks from those injuries in the bark and the sapsuckers come back later to lick that liquid, and any insects that were drawn to it.  That sap supplements their regular diet of insects they take out of dead wood in trees.
     A variety of other creatures also sip the sap from sapsucker wounds in trees.  Some of those critters are mourning cloak butterflies and other early-flying, brush-footed butterflies, plus flies, small moths and other kinds of insects that smell the sugar in the sap and are drawn to it.  And a small variety of little birds, such as kinglets, chickadees, hummingbirds and others also come to the sap to sip it.
     But flickers and sapsuckers, still being woodpeckers, chip nurseries into trees to raise their young.  Flickers nest throughout much of North America, while sapsuckers are more likely to breed in more northern forests.  Here in the Mid-Atlantic States we see flickers in spring and summer, but the sapsuckers, for the most part, are here only in winter.
     Flickers and sapsuckers demonstrate how certain species of a family of creatures will diverge from the norm, not by planning, but by blundering into a niche that serves them well and reduces competition with their relatives.  Those pioneer species become better adapted to those niches until they are trapped in them and develop physical characteristics and habits that are different than those of their cousins. 
     Watch for woodpeckers and see how well adapted they are for their work.  And see how flickers and sapsuckers diverged from some of the norms of their family.