Food items served at Sapsuckers have pedigrees of their own: the bread is from Tom Cat Bakery in Queens, the organic eggs are from the nearby Makinajian Farm, the chicken is Bell & Evans and the pork, Berkshire.
Dr. Chu said that Ken Rosenberg, captain of the lab's competitive birding team, Team Sapsucker, had heard robins singing at night during 24-hour bird-counting competitions in Louisiana.
The bird pictures, taken with the help of strobe lamps from specially constructed wooden towers, hang in a separate area — the better to allow for contemplation of minute details like the tiny open beaks protruding from the nest of a blackpoll warbler or the soft blur at the wingtip of a Williamson's sapsucker.
Information is available by calling (800) 843-2473, writing FeederWatch, 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, N.Y., 14850, or on the Web at www.birds.cornell.edu.edu
"Ah," Ms. Weiss said, "a yellow-bellied sapsucker.
And we got the pewee and the sapsucker and the chestnut-sided warbler".
Still, few people will travel to such remote landscapes — or Sapsucker Woods, for that matter — and technology supplies a shortcut.
There is a muted hush, broken only by the sound of an occasional sparrow, raptor, raven or sapsucker.
Up in the frozen tundra of the northern Bronx, some creatures were stirring, yes, but not the yellow-bellied sapsucker that Christopher Lyons was looking for.
In a nod to the name, there is a small picture of a yellow-bellied sapsucker on the back wall, overshadowed by large Audubon prints on other walls.
