Pale-billed Woodpecker

Belize - Pale-billed Woodpecker, originally uploaded by billy3001.

To me, the stare of this bird reminds me of the intense wonder that I felt at the first glimpse I ever had of a live Campephilus woodpecker, in the Mountain Ridge Pine forest in Belize.

Pale-billed Woodpecker

Belize - Pale-billed Woodpecker, originally uploaded by billy3001.

The light caught his ivory bill, reminding me that this bird is sometimes referred to as the Guatemalan Ivory-billed Woodpecker. I took this photo back in December, 2005 before I had upgraded to a digital SLR camera.  My Canon Powershot S1 IS did more than a decent job capturing this bird for me 25 feet high in the forest canopy!  Pale-billed Woodpecker, Mountain Pine Ridge forest, Belize.

Pale-billed Woodpecker - Looking Regal

Belize - Pale-billed Woodpecker, originally uploaded by billy3001.

Male Pale-billed Woodpecker, Mountain Pine Ridge forest, Belize.

Pale-billed Woodpecker

Belize - Pale-billed Woodpecker, originally uploaded by billy3001.

I'm not sure whether the bird noticed us. He certainly seemed absorbed in foraging up near the treetops. Pale-billed Woodpecker, Mountain Pine Ridge forest, Belize.

Pale-billed Woodpecker

Belize - Pale-billed Woodpecker, originally uploaded by billy3001.

This photo of a male Pale-billed Woodpecker represents my first look at a species. I heard it, then saw it in the Mountain Pine Ridge forest in Belize.

Pale-billed Woodpecker

woodpecker, originally uploaded by brettocop.

This photo of a female Pale-billed Woodpecker was taken in Carara National Park in Costa Rica. The park site says that:  Birdwatchers are interested in the Carara National Park area because it presents two life zones and a variety of birds, including one of the largest remaining wild populations of Scarlet Macaw in Costa Rica.   You can read more here.

You can tell this bird is a female because it has black in the center of its crown and forecrown in contrast to the entirely bright red head of the male. For an extensive profile of the Pale-billed Woodpecker ->  You can visit Neotropical Birds here.

Thanks to brettocop for this Creative Commons licensed photo.
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Pale-billed Woodpecker in Mexico

Originally posted 7/6/10 - backdated to organize posts by topic.

Pale-billed Woodpecker, originally uploaded by sweeneyfit.

This male Pale-billed Woodpecker in Oaxaca, Mexico looks intently focused upon its next target in this photo © sweeneyfit and posted here with his permission.

Pale-billed Woodpecker in Guatemala

Originally posted 10/1/10 - backdated to organize posts by topic.

Pale-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus guatemalensis), Guatemala, originally uploaded by Scott A. McNealy.

I like this somewhat dreamy photograph © by Scott A. McNealy of a Pale-billed Woodpecker in Guatemala, posted here with his kind permission. It's got great bokeh! Scott has his own site that you can visit here:

No Boundary Photography

Powerful Woodpecker - Up Close!

Originally posted 5/14/11 - backdated to organize posts by topic.

Powerful Woodpecker, originally uploaded by telembi.

Enjoy this fantastic close-up photo of a female Powerful Woodpecker taken in Colombia by Juan Carlos L. This bird lives in the Andes mountains, from Central Colombia to Peru.  Notice the "v" shape the white lines make on the back, a pattern shared by several members of the genus.  Male birds have a red forehead and crest.  The photo is posted here with permission.

Powerful Woodpecker - Tapichalaca, Ecuador

Originally posted 9/26/11 - backdated to organize posts by topic.

Powerful Woodpecker - Tapichalaca - South-Ecuador, a photo by fveronesi1 on Flickr.

This image of a male Powerful Woodpecker displays its feature very well. It has a black bill, face black with white stripe, and a red crown. Females lack any red, having entire forehead to hindneck black. Endemic to northwestern South America, this species favors an especially beautiful environment - wet montane and cloud forest, often on steep slopes, at elevations of 4,000 to 12,000 feet in the Andes mountains.

Reference: Short, L. L. 1982:432-433. Woodpeckers of the World. Delaware Museum of Natural History, Greenville, Delaware.

Photo posted here under Creative Commons license.

Mégapic de Gray, the Powerful Woodpecker

Originally posted 6/17/10 - backdated to organize posts by topic.

The illustration above is Plate V. from Alfred Mahlerbe's Monographie des Picidées. It depicts a family group consisting of a male Powerful Woodpecker in left, foreground, a female in the background and a male juvenile bird.

Here is an excerpt listing various names for the Powerful Woodpecker from the 1868 publication entitled List of the Specimens of Birds in the Collection of the British Museum by George Robert Gray, creator of the Campephilus genus, et al.  It is available here at Google books. 

The bird image above is within the public domain and it appears here courtesy of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York.

Powerful Woodpecker

powerful woodpecker, originally uploaded by jj birder.

Many thanks to John Jackson (jj birder) on Flickr for sharing this striking photo of a male Powerful Woodpecker here. The photo is posted here with his permission.

Nesting Biology of the Powerful Woodpecker

Photo by J. Simbaña

The Powerful Woodpecker was named long ago, in 1845 by Charles Lucien Bonaparte, a French naturalist and ornithologist who was the nephew of famed Emperor Napoleon.

These 165 years later, very little is known about the breeding biology of this bird, an uncommon resident of montane regions from Venezuela to Peru (according to the article cited herein). The remarkable photos you see here are two of several within an article entitled First description of the eggs and nestlings of Powerful Woodpecker (Campephilus pollens) by Harold F. Greeney, Jose Simbaña & Lucia A. Salazar-V., and published February 26, 2010 in Boletín SAO in which the authors state:

Here we present the first observations, from north-eastern Ecuador, 
on the eggs and nestlings of this poorly known species.

The full-text article, including its amazing photos, is freely available online under Creative Commons license.  The two photos here were taken by J. Simbaña and are posted here with permission.

Find the article here.

Photo by J. Simbaña

Powerful Woodpecker

powerful woodpecker--female, originally uploaded by joel n rosenthal.

Many thanks to Joel N. Rosenthal for granting permission to post this photo of a female Powerful Woodpecker.

Powerful Woodpecker

Powerful Woodpecker, originally uploaded by Jim Scarff.

An excellent photograph of a male Powerful Woodpecker, posted with thanks to Jim Scharff of Flickr.

Powerful Woodpecker

powerful woodpecker, originally uploaded by WLA.

Many thanks to WLA on Flickr for sharing this photo of a juvenile male Powerful Woodpecker, who also offers this interesting info:

"The bird in question was a pet in an indigenous village. Its pretty young and the sole survivor of a brood of three birds."

This photo displays the classic arrangement of toes in Campephilus woodpeckers.  It is not the zygodactly arrangement typical of so many other woodpeckers, of two pairs of toes arranged opposite each other, pointing top and bottom.  Rather, the third toe of the bird is elongated and extended horizontally to brace the large bird against a tree trunk, as a person on a very narrow cliff face might extend each arm to brace him or herself against the cliff.


Consider this when you see in illustrations of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers and other Campephilus species because the illustrators too often go with the incorrect zygodactyl toe arrangement that's typical of many other woodpeckers, but not those in the Campephilus genus.

Powerful Woodpecker

Powerful Woodpecker - Campephilus pollens (female) - Guasca, E Andes, originally uploaded by COLOMBIA Birding (Diego Calderon).

Many thanks to Diego Calderon of http://www.colombiabirding.com for sharing his photo of a female Powerful Woodpecker taken in Guasca, E. Andes with us. The photo is used here with his permission.

Red-necked Woodpecker

Red-necked Woodpecker (Campephilus rubricollis), Allpahuayo- Mishana Reserve, Peru, originally uploaded by palmchat.

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:   

http://www.jandungel.com

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.

Find the book here at 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.