Beautiful Woodpecker
Melanerpes pulcher
Medium-sized woodpecker endemic to northern Colombia. Strikingly patterned: black above and buffy below with bright red crown, yellow nape, black mask, barred flanks, and a white stripe down the back. Found in dry woodlands and edges, usually in pairs. Compare with Black-cheeked Woodpecker, which lacks a yellow nape and has white spots on the wings.
Identification
The beautiful woodpecker is about 17 to 18 cm (6.7 to 7.1 in) long. The sexes are alike except for their head pattern. Adult males have a whitish forehead, a scarlet crown, and a golden yellow lower nape and hindneck. Adult females have the same whitish forehead and yellow hindneck but a black forecrown and a scarlet hindcrown and nape. Both sexes have black around the eye that extends down the side of the neck. Their lores, cheeks, chin, throat, and breast are white to cream or pale yellow. Their mantle and upper wings are mainly black, with some white barring of the flight feathers, and the back and rump are white, sometimes blotched with black. Their tail is brownish black, the lower breast, belly, and flanks are barred black and white, and there is a red patch on mid-belly. Their iris is very dark brown, the beak is blackish with a paler base, and the legs are gray. Juveniles are duller than adults, their black areas are browner, the underparts' barring is less contrasting, and the belly patch is smaller and more orange.
Taxonomy
From about the middle of the 20th century until early in the 21st century most taxonomic systems treated the beautiful woodpecker and the golden-naped woodpecker (M. chrysauchen) as conspecific. The combined species and several others were for a time placed in genus Tripsurus. The beautiful woodpecker is monotypic.
- Scientific name
- Melanerpes pulcher
- Authority
- Sclater, PL, 1870
- Order
- Piciformes
- Family
- Picidae
- Genus
- Melanerpes
Range and habitat
The beautiful woodpecker is endemic to the valley of the Magdalena River in north central Colombia. It primarily inhabits mature open forests, both dry and humid. It sometimes occurs in plantations, and occasionally in fragmented and secondary forest. In elevation it ranges between 400 and 1,500 m (1,300 and 4,900 ft).
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The beautiful woodpecker is a year-round resident throughout its range.<p>The beautiful woodpecker mostly forages high in the forest, in the canopy and just below it. It feeds on insects including adult and larval wood-boring beetles and winged termites; it sometimes hawks flying insects above the tops of the trees. In addition to insects it feed on much fruit including figs, bananas, and fruits of the Cecropia tree.<p>The beautiful woodpecker's breeding season is thought to be from February or March to June or July, but nothing else is known about its breeding biology.<p>The beautiful woodpecker's most common call is "loud, rather squeaky, sometimes more guttural, [and] usually of 3 notes". It also makes "rattling trills" and a "churring call". Both sexes are believed to drum.
Conservation
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
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Vultur gryphus
Huge, wide-ranging vulture of the Andes, but also ranges into lowlands in southern Chile and Tierra del Fuego. Locally fairly common in Chile and adjacent Argentina, less numerous northward. Mainly seen as singles or pairs, sailing high over ridges, but tens can gather at roosts and to scavenge at carcasses. Size alone is diagnostic, but can be difficult to judge at a distance: note very long “fingers” at wingtips and white collar of adult. Adult also has diagnostic big white panels on upperwing, visible as birds bank. Immatures dark overall, becoming like adult in about 5 years.
Sri Lanka Drongo
Dicrurus lophorinus
Large, upright, blackish bird with a long, deeply-forked tail and tuft of feathers on the forehead. Typically found in pairs, often in mixed flocks, within the understory of humid forests in the lowlands and foothills of Sri Lanka’s Wet Zone. Lacks rackets, unlike similar Greater Racket-tailed Drongo. Tuft of feathers above the bill is absent in similar Ashy and Black Drongos. Tail shape an important feature: deeply-forked with curled up tips to the outer tail feathers unlike other drongos. Very vocal, with varied repertoire, including a repetitive “whichitu-whichitu-whichitu”, and metallic “kerplee”, as well as complex whistles, bell-like calls, and scratchy notes.
Reichenbach's Sunbird
Anabathmis reichenbachii
A distinctive blue-headed sunbird that occurs in mangroves, forest edges, and gardens, almost exclusively near water. Yellow-green above and largely gray below, with a distinctive iridescent purple-blue hood that has a unique shape, covering the head, face, throat, and chest but not the back of the neck. Visually similar to other “hooded” sunbirds, most notably Green-headed Sunbird, but Reichenbach’s Sunbird always has a greenish nape, far more iridescence on the chest than the head, and a yellowish vent. Song, often given repetitively from a perch, is a mewing call followed by two hoarse whistles, “reer, tew! tew!”, while the calls are single “tiuw” notes.
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