Sunda Pygmy Woodpecker
Yungipicus moluccensis
Small plain woodpecker of wooded areas from primary rainforest to parklands and forest edges. Brownish overall with a white-striped head, a spotted back, and pale gray streaks on a buffy breast. Male has a small red speck near the back of the crown. Similar Gray-capped Woodpecker is black-and-white, with a less cleanly striped head, cleaner underparts, and unevenly distributed pale spotting on the back and wings. Sunda’s call is a high-pitched rattling trill.
Identification
This is a small woodpecker with an overall length of around 13 cm (5.1 in). It has a greyish brown capped head, dark brown ear covers with two rather broad whitish grey bands narrowing towards neck. Upper parts greyish brown with white wings tipped with white thus appearing striped. Tail short and blackish with white bands. Lores and throat white leading into dirty white underparts. Upper breast streaked with brown reducing towards vent. Whitish underwing coverts with pale brown. Sexes dimorphic. Males have a reddish orange crown which is absent in females.
Taxonomy
The Sunda pygmy woodpecker was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the other woodpeckers in the genus Picus and coined the binomial name Picus moluccensis. Gmelin based his description on "Le petit épeiche brun des Moluques" that had been described in 1780 by the French polymath Comte de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The locality was originally specified as the Maluku Islands. This was an error and has been corrected to the state of Malacca in Malaysia. The Sunda pygmy woodpecker is now one of seven species placed in the genus Yungipicus that was introduced in 1854 by Charles Lucien Bonaparte.<p>Two subspecies are recognised:
- Scientific name
- Yungipicus moluccensis
- Authority
- (Gmelin, JF, 1788)
- Order
- Piciformes
- Family
- Picidae
- Genus
- Yungipicus
Range and habitat
Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest, subtropical or tropical mangrove forest, and subtropical or tropical moist montane forest.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
A common visitor to urban areas and forests in Singapore. Often found singly or in pairs rapidly moving up trees. Found from ground right up into the topmost branches of trees on dead branches.
Conservation
- Population trend
- rising
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
Buru Boobook
Ninox hantu
An atypical-looking and distinctive smallish boobook, with its fairly unmarked bright cinnamon-brown plumage. Endemic to Buru, where it inhabits lowland and foothill forests. Song is a rather strange, frog- or insect-like series of hoarse, insistent-sounding croaking notes, often given in medium-length series. Formerly lumped with Seram Boobook under the name “Hantu Boobook.
White-browed Tit-Spinetail
Leptasthenura xenothorax
Small, active bird found locally in the southern Peruvian Andes. Brownish gray with a red cap, a white-streaked face, breast, and back, and a white eyebrow. Note its tiny, thumbtack-like bill and its fairly long, pointed tail. Forages in and near Polylepis patches, where it makes quick, short hops through dense bushy vegetation. Its song is a dry, rapid descending trill of chips.
Whistler's Warbler
Phylloscopus whistleri
One of a confusingly similar complex of species, this medium-sized warbler has a bright yellow eye-ring, a pale and indistinct wingbar, and a grayish crown bordered by two long black stripes. The weakness and greenish cast of the gray crown separates this species from various other “golden-spectacled”-type warblers, such as Gray-crowned. Golden-spectacled Warbler is very similar; in Whistler’s, look out for an unbroken eye-ring, a shorter bill, a longer tail, and slightly duller green upperparts. Whistler’s breeds in high-altitude temperate broadleaf forest from around 2000 meters up to the treeline; averages higher in altitudinal breeding preferences than Golden-spectacled Warbler. Like other “golden-spectacled”-type warblers, Whistler’s typically forages at lower and middle levels of forest, often mixing with other species and making flycatching sallies. Song consists of a 2- or 3-noted whistled phrase repeated 2-3 times without pause, lacking the trills of Golden-spectacled Warbler.
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