Melancholy woodpecker

This species was formally described by the German ornithologist Gustav Hartlaub in 1857.[2] The species is monotypic. It was sometimes considered conspecific with the Gabon woodpecker, Dendropicos gabonensis, because D. gabonensis reichenowi is intermediate between the two species.[3]

In Kakum National Park, Ghana

The melancholy woodpecker is 17–18 cm (6.7–7.1 in) long. The crown is olive-brown, and the nape is red in the male and blackish in the female.[4] The face is white and has an olive-brown malar, dusky ear coverts and a white supercilium.[5] The chin and throat are white and often have dark streaks or spots. The upperparts are bronzy-green. The flight feathers are brown, with greenish-bronze edges. The tail is black above and grey-black below. The underparts are greenish-yellow, with broad brown streaks.[4] The beak is greyish, the legs are olive or grey, and the iris is chesnut.[5] The juvenile bird is duller, and its upperparts do not have a bronze tone.[4]

This woodpecker is found in the Upper Guinean forests of West Africa,[5] in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Togo.[1] Its habitat is open forest, forest edges, clearings, secondary forest and woodlands, up to 1,200 m (3,900 ft) in elevation.[4] It is also found in swamps, plantations and gardens.[5]

The melancholy woodpecker eats insects in the canopy. It forages in families and joins mixed-species foraging flocks. It sometimes drums quietly and stridently. Its calls include a tinny trill, a series of rrek and rrak notes, b-ddddddd-d-it, br-r-r-r-r-r-r and zh-dzeeeep. It calls pit notes in disputes.[5] Breeding may occur from December to March.[4]

The species has a large range and stable population, so the IUCN has assessed it as a least-concern species.[1]

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