White-browed Woodpecker
Piculus aurulentus
Medium-sized woodpecker found in both montane and lowland humid forests. Olive-green above and barred below with a yellow throat. Note a complex head pattern: red crown on males (green on females) and yellow stripes above and below the eye that are bordered by another red stripe below the eye. Resembles Golden-green Woodpecker, which is bigger, lacks the yellow eyebrow and has a pale iris.
Identification
The yellow-browed woodpecker is 21 to 22 cm (8.3 to 8.7 in) long and weighs 22 to 68 g (0.78 to 2.4 oz). Males and females have the same plumage except on their heads. Males are red from forehead to nape, have a narrow yellowish white supercilium, are dark olive green around the eye and onto the side of the neck, and successively below that a pale yellow stripe and a red malar band. Their chin and throat are pale golden. The female has an olive forehead and crown and much less red at the malar. Adults have olive green upperparts. Their flight feathers are dark brown with greenish edges and dark cinnamon-rufous on the inner webs. Their tail is blackish. Their underparts are whitish with wide dark olive bars. Their medium-length beak is blackish gray with a paler base on the mandible, their iris chestnut-brown, and the legs greenish gray. Juveniles are generally duller than adults and have less well defined barring on their underparts.
Taxonomy
Some authors treat the yellow-browed woodpecker and the golden-green woodpecker (P. chrysochloros) as a superspecies. The species is monotypic.
- Scientific name
- Piculus aurulentus
- Authority
- (Temminck, 1821)
- Order
- Piciformes
- Family
- Picidae
- Genus
- Piculus
Range and habitat
The yellow-browed woodpecker is found from Brazil's São Paulo state south through eastern Paraguay and northern Uruguay into northeastern Argentina. It inhabits the interior and edges of humid mature montane forest, dense secondary forest and woodland, and humid lowland forest. In elevation it ranges between 750 and 2,000 m (2,500 and 6,600 ft) in Brazil and generally lower in the other countries.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
As far as is known, the yellow-browed woodpecker is a year-round resident throughout its range.<p>The yellow-browed woodpecker mostly forages in the forest's middle level, by itself or in pairs. It commonly feeds by gleaning and pecking to reach prey. Its diet has not been studied in detail but is known to include ants and their eggs.<p>The yellow-browed woodpecker's breeding season is not well defined but appears to include August to November. It tends to excavate its nest cavity high in a tree.The clutch size, incubation period, time to fledging, and details of parental care are not known.<p>The yellow-browed woodpecker's song is a "slow or hurried series of 7-15 high 'wuh' notes." It drums with "rapid, regular rolls."
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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