Saturday, January 30, 2010

Red-necked Woodpecker

Photos of the beautiful Red-necked Woodpecker are few and far between.

This photo of a male bird is © palmchat with thanks for sharing it here. Another person commented that this bird looks like an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, wearing a disguise!  It's no wonder.  There are only a few large woodpeckers that possess a striking ivory bill like the one you see on this bird.

This photo was taken at Allpahuayo-Mishana Reserve in Peru.

Read more about the reserve here.

Red-necked Woodpecker Video

Originally posted 10/27/10 - backdated to organize posts by topic.


I like this video of a male Red-necked Woodpecker by baco1970 for a couple of reasons.  First, it gives us a close up view of the bird's brilliant red head and neck with its spot of black and white on the lower ear coverts, its striking yellow eye and its large, pale bill.  Second, the video lasts for just 9 or 10 seconds which seems to me like all the time one might very well have to see this beautiful bird during a venture into the Amazon rain forest.

Press play, then change the setting at the lower right of the video box from  360p to 480p to watch it at higher resolution.

Red-necked and Crimson-crested Woodpeckers, Together!

Originally posted 12/20/10 - backdated to organize posts by topic.

I was amazed when I discovered this photo because I do not recall ever seeing two species of Campephilus woodpeckers on the same tree, in the same photo!   The bird on the left is a female Red-necked Woodpecker.  The bird on the right is a male Crimson-crested Woodpecker.   This great image is posted here by permission of Michel Giraud-Audine.  He took this photo in Kourou, Cayenne in French Guiana. 

Red-necked Woodpecker


Red-necked Woodpecker, originally uploaded by keir randall.
Photo © keir randall on Flickr and many thanks to him for granting permission to post it here. He took this photo of a male Red-necked Woodpecker in Shanklands, Essiquibo River, Guyana. The Red-necked Woodpecker is the least seldom photographed Campephilus, as far as I can tell, along with the Crimson-bellied Woodpecker. After a few days, I'll back-date and move this one and the Imperial Woodpecker photo below to their respective species areas. For now, each one is highlighted here on the home page.

Datel červenočerný / Red-necked Woodpeckers by Jan Dungel

Originally posted 7/5/2011 - backdated to organize posts by topic.
Illustrations © Jan Dungel

I have been painting wild animals in their natural habitats of South American tropics since 1992. All the drawings were made upon the closest encounters with these animals. Many of them I meet repeatedly at the same spot and thus I have been knowing them”personally” for several years.....

I've long admired this beautiful illustration of a pair of Red-necked Woodpeckers that you can find with an ample array of work by Jan Dungel, a Czech painter, graphic artist and illustrator at:   


The artist sent me a few words about his experience with these birds, and woodpeckers in general, in the Amazon Rain Forest as follows:

Woodpeckers are surprisingly common birds throughout the whole Amazonia. They are very similar to their allies in the temperate zone in their manners and habits, usually noisy and conspicuous – in fact one of the most visible rainforest birds of all. I meet them daily both in the lower part of the forest as well as in the dense canopy. There are many species, some are small (Veniliornis and Piculus sp) the others large (Campephilus sp).

I observed and painted this pair of Red-necked Woodpeckers (Campephilus rubricollis) flying from one tree trunk to another in the upper Orinoco in Venezuela some six years ago. The red-necked "carpintero" is very distinct among the rainforest woodpeckers for its uniformly red belly, unmistakable while the other large woodpeckers of the same [and another] genus are very similar in their black and red coloration and quite difficult to determine especially when foraging high in the trees.
..............................
The Campo Flickers depicted above typically inhabit open and semi-open habitat, like savannas and pampas, in South America.

Red-necked Woodpecker - A Pair of Males


Photo © by Arthur Grosset and thanks to him for granting permission to post this photo of two male Red-necked Woodpeckers Arthur Grossest's site is here.

Red-necked Woodpecker


Photo © by Arthur Grosset and thanks to him for granting permission to post this photo of a male Red-necked Woodpecker.  Arthur Grossest's site is here.

Red-necked Woodpecker in Ecuador

Originally posted 10/22/10 - backdated to organize posts by topic.


Red-necked Woodpecker, originally uploaded by rowbird2005.

A leafy green and white make for an attractive background in this photo of a male Red-necked Woodpecker in Ecuador.   This bird is one of the less seldom photographed members of the Camp. genus, so special thanks to Forrest Rowland for granting permission to post his photo here. 

Album de aves amazonicas (1900)


Album de aves amazonicas by Emil August Göldi was published in 1900.  The book, including its many wonderful colored plates, is available for free download in various formats from the Biodiversity Hermitage Library at Internet Archive.  In this print, a pair of Red-necked Woodpeckers appears in the upper right corner, with the female bird in the foreground.  The large woodpecker in the middle resembles a female Crimson-crested Woodpecker, but is identified as a Lineated Woodpecker (Dryocopus lineatus) in the text.  Public domain image, courtesy of Internet Archive.

Red-necked Woodpecker


red-necked woodpecker, originally uploaded by pixienicki.
Many thanks to pixienicki on Flickr for sharing her photo of a male Red-necked Woodpecker here. She took it near the Rio Tambopata in Peru. The photo is posted here with her permission.