Belly doesn't look all that "Yellow" to me, but that's the name. Thought it was a young Pileated whose "Hairdoo" hadn't developed at first.

Those are very common in Minnesota. Almost every spring I get one drumming on my house in the eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities. One year one would annoy me around 5am at the cabin by drumming on the metal siding.

My parents don’t like them either since overzealous sapsuckers kill off young birch each year on their land off by girdling them with their sap wells.

They do seem to have a slightly redeeming quality however; I’ve seen early arriving humming birds use their sap wells on my sugar maples at my cabin.

Thanks for sharing this picture. I was just looking over old posts and I found this. Yellow Bellies are my favorite woodpecker. They are usually quiet and misunderstood. As mentioned by inspector13 they are considered a nuisance by many people for pecking all of those holes in perfect lines up and down trees. I personally think the hole lines are amazing in how lined up and straight they are. They can introduce disease into some trees by opening them up this way though. Some people just outright kill the bird (which is illegal). There are other ways to prevent a Sapsucker from attacking backyard trees though.