Friday 9 January 2015

Terrestrial Woodpeckers

There are several woodpecker species around the world that tend to forage on the ground and many others that, though essentially arboreal, will also occasionally drop to the ground to feed. Two species, however, are highly terrestrial, hardly ever using trees and seldom actually pecking wood! They are, the Andean Flicker Colaptes rupicola of the high Andes in South America & the Ground Woodpecker Geocolaptes olivaceus of Southern Africa. Here is a close-up of the former: a male of the puna race, in C Peru, November 2012 (Gerard Gorman).