Woodpecker Flight

The line 'typical woodpecker flight' is often used in the literature. It is used to describe a bounding, undulating flight style. However, many woodpeckers do not fly in this way. The larger species in particular do not bound but rather move in a fairly straight, steady line, flapping in a manner not unlike that of a crow. Black Woodpecker in flight taken by Colin Brown, Hungary, August 2012. 

Picid in Focus: Jamaican Woodpecker

Male (note all-red crown) Jamaican Woodpecker Melanerpes radiolatus. Photo of this island endemic taken by Neil Bowman. This species will raise 2 or 3 broods a year and its holes provide cavities for various parrots, martins and other birds.

Picid in Focus: Andean Flicker male

Adult male Andean Flicker Colaptes rupicola rupicola. Photo taken in Chile by Gonzalo Gonzalez.

Literature: Downy Woodpecker - Wild Bird Guides

This excellent monograph on Picoides pubescens by Gary Ritchison includes some great photos of North America's smallest woodpecker species. The book is fact-filled, with just about all the natural history of the species covered, but it is not overly scientific and so is a book for all fans of woodpeckers. Published by Stackpole Books, USA, in 1999.