Current evidence suggests that trees of the apple family may form an important link in the life history of sapsuckers. Migrants add to damage . Migrating sapsuckers add to the damage caused by local nesting birds. Both spring and fall migrants normally used the same trees damaged earlier the same year, or in preceding years. Migrants pass through our local sapsucker territories in several waves.
Individual migrants stay and feed for several hours to a week or longer.
Later migrants may use the same trees. I believe this habit also might prevail farther south, between the summer and winter ranges. But there only waves of migrants would be involved, not nesting or wintering birds.