Sphyrapicus ruber is in the family of woodpeckers, they make their living drilling holes in the bark of trees in order to return and suck-up the resulting oozing sap and the occasional insects that are also drawn to that fresh sugary food source. This mature Bay Laurel tree’s bark show’s the many years of repeated visitations to re-open the lines of adjacent sap-wells. Sometimes trees can succumb to the wounds caused by sapsuckers but many survive to live and provide nutrition for new generations of sapsuckers.
