Blond-crested woodpecker

The blond-crested woodpecker (Celeus flavescens) is a species of bird in the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.

Not to be confused with pale-crested woodpecker.

Blond-crested woodpecker
Male in São Paulo, Brazil
Female
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Class: Aves
Order: Piciformes
Family: Picidae
Genus: Celeus
Species:
C. flavescens
Binomial name
Celeus flavescens
(Gmelin, JF, 1788)

Taxonomy and systematics

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]

Description

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]

Distribution and habitat

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]

Behavior

Movement

The blond-crested woodpecker is a year-round resident throughout its range.[8]

Feeding

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]

Breeding

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]

Status

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]

References
  1. BirdLife International (2016). "Blond-crested Woodpecker Celeus flavescens". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T61536191A95170760. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T61536191A95170760.en. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  2. Gmelin, Johann Friedrich (1788). Systema naturae per regna tria naturae : secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1, Part 1 (13th ed.). Lipsiae [Leipzig]: Georg. Emanuel. Beer. pp. 427–428.
  3. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 160. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  4. Brown, Peter (1776). Nouvelles illustrations de zoologie : contenant cinquante planches enlumineés d'oiseaux curieux, et qui non etés jamais descrits, et quelques de quadrupedes, de reptiles et d'insectes, avec de courtes descriptions systematBuffoniques [New illustrations of zoology, containing fifty coloured plates of new, curious, and non-descript birds, with a few quadrupeds, reptiles and insects]. London: Imprimé pour B. White. p. 24; Plate 12.
  5. Boie, Friedrich (1831). "Bemerkungen über Species und einige ornithologische Familien und Sippen". Isis von Oken (in German). Cols 538–548 [542].
  6. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (January 2023). "Woodpeckers". IOC World Bird List Version 13.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
  7. Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 30 January 2023. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved January 30, 2023
  8. Winkler, H. and D. A. Christie (2020). Blond-crested Woodpecker (Celeus flavescens), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.blcwoo4.01 retrieved February 4, 2023
  9. Gorman, Gerard (2014). Woodpeckers of the World: A Photographic Guide. Firefly Books. pp. 375–376. ISBN 978-1770853096.


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