Arizona Woodpecker

Picoides arizonaeOrder: PICIFORMESFamily: Woodpeckers (Picidae)

General

Arizona Woodpecker: Small woodpecker with brown upperparts and heavily spotted and barred white underparts. Forehead and crown are brown, nape patch is red, and neck patch is white. Face is white with a large, brown cheek patch, creating white eyebrow and line from bill to neck. Female and juvenile are similar but lack red napes.

Range and Habitat

Arizona Woodpecker: Occurs in the mountains of extreme southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. Range extends southward into Mexico through Sierra Madre Occidental of Sonora, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Durango, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Zacatecas, and Michoaca. Frequents open oak or pine-oak woodlands or sycamores in canyons.

Voice Text

"peek", "chick", "chriek-a"

Interesting Facts

The Arizona Woodpecker is known in older field guides as a subspecies of Strickland's Woodpecker.

They are one of the primary cavity nesters in their area, and are responsible for providing nest sites for a large number of additional species.

Of the typical woodpeckers of the U.S. and Canada, the Arizona Woodpecker is the only species that is brown and white and not black and white.

A group of woodpeckers has many collective nouns, including a "descent", "drumming", and "gatling" of woodpeckers.

Author

Gary Owen Dick

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Bird Call Credits: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Martyn Stewart, http://www.naturesound.org, Redmond, Washington USA. The reuse or copying of bird calls in this database is strictly forbidden.

Arizona Woodpecker

Arizona Woodpecker: Small woodpecker with brown upperparts and heavily spotted and barred white underparts. The forehead and crown are brown, nape patch is red, and throat is white. Face is white with a large, brown cheek patch, creating a white eyebrow and line from the bill to neck.

● Song: "peek", "chick", "chriek-a"

● Foraging & Feeding: Arizona Woodpecker: Eats insects, especially beetle larvae, fruits, and acorns; forages by flying to base of tree, working up trunk and onto smaller branches, and then flying to base of next tree.

● Breeding & nesting: Arizona Woodpecker: Three to four white eggs are laid in a cavity nest made of bark chips and built from 9 to 50 feet above the ground, usually in a dead branch of a living tree, primarily walnuts, oaks, maples, and sycamores. Both parents incubate eggs for 14 days.

● Similar species: Arizona Woodpecker: Ladder-backed Woodpecker has black-outlined, buff ear patches, and white bars and spots on black upperparts; male's crown is completely red. Hairy Woodpecker has white underparts, white back and unmarked white outer tail feathers.

Flight Pattern

Several rapid wing beats alternate with short glides with wings folded.

Arizona Woodpecker Breeding Male Body Illustration

● Range & Habitat: Arizona Woodpecker: Occurs in the mountains of extreme southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. Range extends southward into Mexico through Sierra Madre Occidental of Sonora, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Durango, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Zacatecas, and Michoaca. Frequents open oak or pine-oak woodlands or sycamores in canyons.

^BreedingMonogamous, Solitary nester

^PopulationFairly common to uncommon

^MigrationNonmigratory

^Weight1.7 Ounces

Field Guide to Birds of North America