| Blond-crested woodpecker | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Male in São Paulo, Brazil | |
 | |
| Female | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Piciformes |
| Family: | Picidae |
| Genus: | Celeus |
| Species: | C. flavescens |
| Binomial name | |
| Celeus flavescens (Gmelin, JF, 1788) | |
 | |
The blond-crested woodpecker (Celeus flavescens) is a species of bird in the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.
The blond-crested 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 flavescens. [2] The specific epithet flavescens is Latin meaning "golden-yellowish". [3] Gmelin based his description on the "yellow-crested woodpecker" from Brazil that had been described and illustrated in 1776 by the English naturalist Peter Brown. Thomas Pennant had provided Brown with a drawing of the bird. [4] The blond-crested woodpecker is now one of 13 species placed in the genus Celeus that was introduced in 1831 by Friedrich Boie. [5] [6]
The blond-crested woodpecker has two subspecies, the nominate C. f. flavescens (Gmelin, JF, 1788) and C. f. intercedens (Hellmayr 1908). [6] What is now the ochre-backed woodpecker (C. ochraceus) was previously included as a third subspecies. [7]
The blond-crested woodpecker is about 27 to 30 cm (11 to 12 in) long. The nominate subspecies weighs 110 to 165 g (3.9 to 5.8 oz). Males of both subspecies have a wide bright red malar area and cheek; sometimes it extends around the eye and occasionally includes the lower forehead; females have black streaks instead of red on the malar and cheek and no red elsewhere. In the nominate subspecies, adults of both sexes have a pale creamy buff to yellowish white head including the long, pointed crest, chin, and throat. Often the side of the neck has black streaks. The adults have a black mantle and upper back with a buffish white to pale yellow lower back, rump, and uppertail coverts; the coverts sometimes have black bars. Their flight feathers are black with narrow white bars and some have white tips. Their wing coverts are barred black and white. Their tail feathers are black with whitish edges or bars on the outermost pair. Their lower neck and underparts are black with a hint of pale barring on the flanks and undertail coverts. Their thighs are pale yellow to buffish with black spots or streaks. The adult's bill is horn-colored or sometimes blue-gray to black with a paler mandible, their iris red or red-brown, and their legs blue-gray. Juveniles are similar to adults but are duller and have more black on their face. Subspecies C. f. intercedens is whitish to buff-white on the head and lower back, and sometimes has some rufous in the flight feathers. [8]
The main call is a "[r]esonant loud 'tsew' or 'wee' repeated up to seven times". It also makes a "well-spaced series of 'wheep' notes", an "aggressive 'tttrrr'", and a "raucous 'wícket wícket'." Its drum is weak "evenly pitched short rolls". [8]
The blond-crested woodpecker's subspecies C. f. intercedens is the more northerly of the two. It is found in western Bahia, Goiás, and Minas Gerais in east-central Brazil. The nominate subspecies is found southeast of it, from southern Bahia to Rio Grande do Sul and into eastern Paraguay and Argentina's Misiones Province. The species inhabits the interior and edges of humid forest and also gallery forest, savanna, caatinga , and orchards. [8]
The blond-crested woodpecker is a year-round resident throughout its range. [8]
The blond-crested woodpecker's diet is arboreal ants, carpenter ants, termites, and lesser but still significant amounts of fruits and berries. It generally forages at the forest's middle level to its canopy but also on the ground, capturing insects by gleaning, probing, pecking, and hammering. It usually feeds in pairs or small groups. [8] It is an important pollinator and disperser of seeds. [9]
The blond-crested woodpecker breeds between April and June in eastern Brazil and between October and November in Argentina. It excavates a nest cavity in a tree or an arboreal ant nest. Nothing else is known about its breeding biology. [8]
The IUCN has assessed the blond-crested woodpecker as being of Least Concern. It has a large range but its population size is not known and is believed to be decreasing. No immediate threats have been identified. [1] It is "generally not uncommon and locally fairly common" and occurs in several protected areas. [8]
The red-breasted sapsucker is a medium-sized woodpecker of the forests of the west coast of North America.
The grey-headed woodpecker, also known as the grey-faced woodpecker, is a Eurasian member of the woodpecker family, Picidae. Along with the more commonly found European green woodpecker and the Iberian green woodpecker, it is one of three closely related sister species found in Europe. Its distribution stretches across large parts of the central and Eastern Palaearctic, all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
The chestnut woodpecker a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found on Trinidad and in every mainland South American country except Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
The lineated woodpecker is a very large woodpecker which is a resident breeding bird from southern Mexico to northern Argentina and on Trinidad in the Caribbean.
The crimson-crested woodpecker is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in Panama, Trinidad, and in every mainland South American country except Chile and Uruguay.
The cream-colored woodpecker is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in every mainland South American country except Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
The rufous woodpecker is a medium-sized brown woodpecker native to South and Southeast Asia. It is short-billed, foraging in pairs on small insects, particularly ants and termites, in scrub, evergreen, and deciduous forests and is noted for building its nest within the carton nests of arboreal ants in the genus Crematogaster. It was for sometime placed in the otherwise Neotropical genus Celeus but this has been shown to be a case of evolutionary convergence and molecular phylogenetic studies support its placement in the monotypic genus Micropternus.
Kaempfer's woodpecker, also known as the Piauí woodpecker and previously as the caatinga woodpecker, is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is endemic to Brazil.
The little woodpecker is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in every mainland South American country except Chile, Suriname, and Uruguay.
The ground woodpecker is one of only three ground-dwelling woodpeckers in the world. It inhabits rather barren, steep, boulder-strewn slopes in relatively cool hilly and mountainous areas of South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini and has yet to be recorded outside of Southern Africa. It is found in a broad swath running from southwest to northeast, from the Cape Peninsula and Namaqualand to Mpumalanga. It is closely related to the woodpeckers of the genus Campethera, some of which also employ terrestrial foraging strategies.
The white-chested puffbird is a species of bird in the family Bucconidae, the puffbirds, nunlets, and nunbirds. It is one of seven species in the genus Malacoptila. It is found in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.
The straight-billed woodcreeper is a species of bird in the subfamily Dendrocolaptinae of the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is found in Panama, on Trindad, and in every mainland South American country except Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
The scaly-breasted woodpecker, also known as the scale-breasted woodpecker, is a subspecies of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. Some taxonomists consider it a separate species. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.
The pale-crested woodpecker a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay.
The rufous-headed woodpecker is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru.
The ringed woodpecker is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in every mainland South American country except Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
The waved woodpecker is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.
The green-barred woodpecker or green-barred flicker is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
The Sunda pygmy woodpecker, also known as the Sunda woodpecker, is a species of bird in the family Picidae. It is found in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Some taxonomic authorities continue to place this species in the genus Dendrocopos or Picoides.
The ochre-backed woodpecker is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is endemic to Brazil.
