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Yellow-throated Woodpecker | Piculus flavigula
Geelkeelspecht | Carpintero goliamarillo | Pica-pau-bufador
The Yellow-throated Woodpecker is a small, green woodpecker of the Amazonian lowlands, with an entirely golden-yellow throat and head below the crown. It lives in the canopy of tall forest and often joins mixed flocks. In the guide area it occurs mainly in northern Amazonia.
Voice
A long, hissing call and a short series of high, shrill notes. It drums little.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
18–21 cm, with a straight, greyish bill. The upperparts are olive-green. The cheek, throat and side of the neck are golden-yellow. The breast and belly are olive-green with white or yellowish scales and spots. The male has a red crown and nape and a red malar stripe; the female has an olive-green crown, red only on the nape and no red malar stripe.
Confusion species
White-throated Woodpecker Piculus leucolaemus has a white throat and only a yellow stripe below the eye. Golden-green Woodpecker Piculus chrysochloros is larger, with an olive-green cheek, a yellow stripe below the cheek and yellow, barred underparts. Spot-breasted Woodpecker Colaptes punctigula has a white cheek and a spotted, yellowish breast, and lives in more open country.
Habitat
Tall humid lowland forest on terra firme, also white-sand forest, várzea and forest edges, mainly below 500 m. It lives in the canopy and the middle levels. It eats ants, termites and other insects. It nests in a self-excavated cavity in a tree.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia in the east, in Amazonia and the Orinoco drainage. In Ecuador in the northern Amazonian lowlands, in Sucumbíos, Orellana and Napo. In Peru mainly in the north-east, in Loreto. In Bolivia only locally in the north and north-east. Absent west of the Andes and from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in Venezuela, the Guianas and Brazilian Amazonia, with a separate population in eastern Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search mixed canopy flocks in tall forest north of the Amazon and the Marañón, for instance from a canopy tower. The hissing call often gives the first clue.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species is tied to tall forest, but still occurs widely in large, little-disturbed forest areas.
Scientific name
Piculus flavigula | (Boddaert, 1783)
Boddaert described the species in 1783 as Picus flavigula; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Piculus was introduced in 1824 by Spix. The genus name is a diminutive of Latin picus, 'woodpecker'. The species name comes from Latin flavus, 'yellow', and gula, 'throat', for the yellow throat. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cayenne, French Guiana.