Campephilus Species

There are either 11 or 12 Campephilus species depending on how the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is classified.  For more details, see a separate post at this link.

RANGE MAPS

Click on a species name to see its range map at Avibase, courtesy of NatureServe.

Cream-backed Woodpecker (Campephilus leucopogon)

Crimson-bellied Woodpecker (Campephilus heamatogaster)

Crimson-crested Woodpecker (Campephilus melanoleucos)

Cuban Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis bairdii)

Guayaquil Woodpecker (Campephilus gayaquilensis)

Imperial Woodpecker (Campephilus imperialis)

Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis)

Magellanic Woodpecker (Campephilus magellanicus)

Pale-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus guatemalensis)

Powerful Woodpecker (Campephilus pollens)

Red-necked Woodpecker (Campephilus rubricollis)

Robust Woodpecker (Campephilus robustus)

Various other sites offer the range map and other species information for each Campephilus woodpecker.   See, for example, this page at Xeno-canto:

Species Overview page for the Crimson-bellied Woodpecker

Listen, Look and Watch at the Macaulay Library

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library bills itself as "the world’s premier scientific archive of natural history audio, video, and photographs."  Follow the link below, and you'll be able to search for over thousands of Campephilus woodpecker media files by common or scientific name.

https://www.macaulaylibrary.org/about/

The Macaulay Library contains the notable 10 min, 20 sec length recording of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers drumming, making kents and also other vocalizations all recorded by Arthur A. Allen and his team in April, 1935.  It also contains a 1 min, 40 sec recording of what may be kent calls of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker recorded by John V. Dennis on February 25, 1968 in Texas.

Listen at Xeno-Canto

Xeno-canto is a community database of shared bird sounds from around the world.  It's an ever-growing collection of bird sounds.  At xeno-canto, you can listen to dozens of Campephilus woodpecker vocalizations, drumming and knocks from 9 out of the 12 species.  Missing are any sounds of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, the Cuban Ivory-billed Woodpecker and the Imperial Woodpecker.  That still leaves a multitude of recordings of the rest of the Campephilus family for your enjoyment and study

http://www.xeno-canto.org/browse.php?query=campephilus

Xeno-canto lets visitors to its site participate by discussing and identifying unknown sounds.  And, if you record bird sounds, you should know that xeno-canto also lets people upload and share their own recordings on the site.

Also, don't miss the highly informative Species Overview  pages on Xeno-Canto.  Available from the left frame menu, these pages offer a summary of number of species sound recordings, photos, range maps and sonogram images.   See this page, for example:

Species Overview page for the Red-necked Woodpecker

WikiAves - A Enciclopédia das Aves do Brasil

WikiAves Encyclopedia of Brazilian Birds is an amazing resource of Campephilus descriptive information, photos and sounds.   WikiAves represents the four species of Campephilus woodpeckers, listed below, that can be found in Brazil.

The photographs that I have seen in WikiAves are among the most spectacular ones that I've seen anywhere.

In English and Portuguese, the four species of Campephilus in WikiAves are:

• Cream-backed Woodpecker         Pica-pau-de-barriga-preta

• Crimson-crested Woodpecker      Pica-pau-de-topete-vermelho
  

• Red-necked Woodpecker             Pica-pau-de-barriga-vermelha 

• Robust Woodpecker                    Pica-pau-rei
  

   

Although the entry on the Cream-backed Woodpecker is rather slim (as of this posting) the others have a wealth of descriptive information.  And you'll find sounds and photos for all of them.  You can cut and paste the Portuguese text into your favorite web-based translator to understand the entries.

Crimson-bellied Woodpecker, Tapichalaca

Originally posted 12/5/10 - backdated to organize posts by topic.

Crimson-bellied Woodpecker, Tapichalaca (PM), originally uploaded by pattymcgann.

Seeing this photo of a male Crimson-beliied Woodpecker is exciting because this large, colorful bird is so seldom photographed!  Female birds look similar to males, but they have a white band down the side of their neck.  It also goes by the name Splendid Woodpecker.  It is a forest-dwelling bird that can be found in eastern Panama, Columbia, Ecuador and Peru.

This fine photo was taken in Tapichalaca, Ecuador by Pati Rouzer and it reaches us courtesy of Patty McGann.

Life History of Magellanic Woodpecker, at Neotropical Birds

Originally posted 3/26/11 - backdated to organize posts by topic.

Photo © M. Lammertink, posted with permission

I am excited to announce that the species account for the Magellanic Woodpecker has been completed at Neotropical Birds!  The species account instantly provides people with an authoritative, comprehensive and free life history of this impressive member of the Campephilus genus.  Co-authored by Valeria Ojeda and Laura Chazarreta (who appear left to right in the photo below) here is an excerpt from the overview:

Although there are woodpeckers throughout most of the Neotropics, perhaps none is as awe-inspiring as the Magellanic Woodpecker, which is an endemic species of the austral temperate forest. The large size, simple and elegant color pattern, as well as the curly and expressive crest of the female strongly suggest the extinct or nearly extinct Imperial (Campephilus imperialis) and Ivory-billed (C. principalis) woodpeckers. 

Visit Neotropical Birds to explore this in-depth entry and you will find information on identification, distribution, life history, and conservation of this species, a list of references, an array of photos and links to several vocalization and sound files:

Go to Magellanic Woodpecker at Neotropical Birds Online 
 

Photo © M. Lammertink, posted with permission

Neotropical Birds is a collaborative project by The Cornell Lab of Ornithology that aims to become the world's most comprehensive resource for neotropical birds. Read more here:

About Neotropical Birds

Visit PicidPics to see more photos of the researchers/co-authors at work in the field:

Magellanic Woodpecker Researchers

Magellanic Woodpecker, Glacier National Park, Argentina

Originally posted 5/20/10 - backdated to organize posts by topic.

Magellanic Woodpecker, Glacier National Park, Argentina, originally uploaded by john_raiders.

This photo of a female Magellanic Woodpecker at Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina shows off her recurved crest very well. The photo is © john_raiders and posted here with his permission.

Magellanic Woodpecker - BAM-Bam!

In this segment from his 1998 series, The Life of Birds, David Attenborough summons a male Magellanic Woodpecker by mimicking it's signature double knock on a tree in Patagonia.  In addition to this clip, the BBC maintains an entire page of information on the Magellanic Woodpecker here at this link.  Notes that accompany the Intro clip on that page describe different foraging behavior of females and males when raising nestlings to strategically maximize food resources.  Males have been known to catch lizards and even the chicks of other birds!

Campephilus double knocks vary in volume and are not necessarily always loud.  But, consider the loud double knock of the Magellanic Woodpecker that occurs at 1:33 min into this clip.  The power behind that double knock is illustrative, I think, of how very loud the double knocks of its northern relative, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, could be, as often described in historical literature, given its substantially larger dimensions.  BAM-Bam!

Ivory-billed Woodpecker
- length 48-53cm/19-21in (approximate)
- 450 - 570 grams (approximate)

Magellanic Woodpecker
- length 36-38cm/14-15in
- male 312-363 grams; female 276 - 312 grams

Source for measurements

- Woodpeckers: A Guide to the Woodpeckers of the World by H. Winkler, D. A. Christie & D. Nurney

Magellanic Woodpecker - The Laughing Call

Magellanic Woodpecker, originally uploaded by billy3001.

Soon after we spotted the group of 3 birds, they spotted us. Then one of the two females flew right over to us, landing high up in the closest tree. She looked down at us and gave out a loud call that sounded as if she was laughing hysterically.  I've watched Pileated Woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus) often in the US, and I've yet to see any of them exhibit such bold curiosity as this bird did.

To hear what this female Magellanic Woodpecker sounded like, check out this link at xeno-canto and select the first sound file on that page!  I took this photo in Lago del Desierto, Argentina.

Pale-billed Woodpecker in Early Morning

Originally posted 5/15/10 - backdated to organize posts by topic.

Pale-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus guatemalensis), originally uploaded by Scott Olmstead.

Here's a very nice photo of a Pale-billed Woodpecker @ Scott Olmstead and posted here with permission. You can see more of his wonderful photography at this link.  He writes:

This bird, the female, had just emerged from her nest cavity in a rotten trunk.
La Selva Biological Station, Heredia, Costa Rica. March 18, 2010. Digiscoped with a
Canon Powershot A590 IS through a Swarovski ATS 65 HD with a 20-60x eyepiece
and the Swarovski DCA Zoom.

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.