The American Three-toed Woodpecker (Picoides dorsalis) is a beetle specialist that feeds primarily on phloem-boring insects that occur only in the inner bark and cambium of attacked trees; apparently it seldom feeds on sap from trees (Murphy and Lehnhausen 1998, Leonard 2001). In Quebec, Imbeau and Desrochers (2002) observed it to spend only 0.6–1.4% of its time feeding on sap from Black Spruce (Picea mariana) trees, and in northern Manitoba Villard (1994) found only one individual feeding on sap. Short (1974, 1982) reported that P. dorsalis presumably does not drill its own holes for sap but occasionally takes it from wells drilled by sapsuckers (Sphyrapicus spp.). Villard (1994) speculated that sap feeding is less well developed in the American Three-toed than it is in the European Three-toed Woodpecker (P. tridactylus) because the sap-feeding niche in North America is already taken by sapsuckers, a conclusion questioned by Imbeau and Desrochers (2002). I found no definitive published reports of P. dorsalis drilling and feeding from sap wells in birch trees (Betula spp.).