Green-backed Woodpecker - BirdForum Opus

Photo by cossypha
Honde Valley, Zimbabwe

Campethera cailliautii

Identification

16 cm
Male

• Black forehead and crown with red tipped feathers
• Red nape
• Buffy lores
• White supercilium

Distribution

Africa
Western Africa: Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola
Eastern Africa: South Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi
Southern Africa: Zimbabwe

Taxonomy

Subspecies

There are 4 subspecies^[1]:

• C. c. permista :

• Eastern Ghana to extreme south-western South Sudan, south-western Uganda, northern Angola and southern DRC

• C. c. nyansae:

• South-western Ethiopia to south-western Kenya, north-western Tanzania, eastern Zaire and north-eastern Angola

• C. c. cailliautii:

• Coastal southern Somalia through Kenya to north-eastern Tanzania; Zanzibar

• C. c. loveridgei:

• Central Tanzania to extreme eastern Zimbabwe and Mozambique

Habitat

Varied habitat; forest to thorn bush savanna. Usually near water

Behaviour

Diet

Their main diet consists of ants and termites.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2017. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2017, with updates to August 2017. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Avibase
3. Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved December 2014)

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Green-backed Woodpecker. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 26 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Green-backed_Woodpecker

External Links

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