Buff-rumped Woodpecker - BirdForum Opus

Meiglyptes grammithorax

Male
Photo © by the late Dr Manjeet Singh
F.R.I.M., Sg Buloh,Selangor, Malaysia, April 2008

Identification

Female
Photo © by the late Dr Manjeet Singh
F.R.I.M., Sg Buloh, Selangor, Malaysia, May 2008

Size-7.5 inches (19cm). Small woodpecker with short black bill and a slight nuchal crest.

• Upperside plumage with black ground colour densely barred whitish, more or less finely.
• Head and upper chest buff finely barred blackish
  • Lores to eye usually unbarred
• Underparts blackish, with fine whitish barring on breast, while flanks and most of abdomen more coarsely barred buff and blackish
• Rump buff to yellowish

Male has red malar stripe

Distribution

Tenasserim (Southern Myanmar) and peninsular Thailand to Sumatra, Borneo and adjacent islands.

Taxonomy

Zebra Woodpecker was formerly included in Buff-rumped Woodpecker.

Subspecies

This is a monotypic species[1].

Habitat

Behavior: pair attacking an ants's nest
Photo © by M Kwan
Sepilok, Sabah, Borneo

Broadleaved lowland forest, forest edges and secondary growth; mostly in lowland, may occur into hills of 1100-1300 m asl.

Behaviour

Usually frequents the canopy to mid story, solitarily or in pairs, sometimes as a family group. Generally unobtrusive. Sometimes forages with mixed species flocks.

Seems to prefer ants and termites but also eats other small invertebrates.

Vocalisation

Voice - a rapid trill ki-i-i-i-i-i- and also a single chit in flight.

References

1. Clements, J. F., P. C. Rasmussen, T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, A. Spencer, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2023. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2023. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Gill, F, D Donsker, and P Rasmussen (Eds). 2023. IOC World Bird List (v 13.2). Doi 10.14344/IOC.ML.13.2. http://www.worldbirdnames.org/
3. BirdForum Member observations
4. Limparungpatthanakij , W. L. (2023). Buff-rumped Woodpecker (Meiglyptes grammithorax), version 2.1. In Birds of the World (N. D. Sly, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.burwoo1.02.1

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Buff-rumped Woodpecker. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 27 July 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Buff-rumped_Woodpecker

External Links

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