Melancholy woodpecker
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The melancholy woodpecker (Dendropicos lugubris) is a species of woodpecker. It is found in West Africa from Sierra Leone east to Nigeria, living in forests, forest edges, clearings and woodlands. It is sometimes considered to be a subspecies of the Gabon woodpecker. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed it as a least-concern species.
Taxonomy
This species was formally described by the German ornithologist Gustav Hartlaub in 1857.[1] The species is monotypic. It was sometimes considered conspecific with the Gabon woodpecker, Dendropicos gabonensis, because D. gabonensis reichenowi is intermediate between the two species.[2]
Description
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The melancholy woodpecker is Script error: No such module "convert". long. The crown is olive-brown, and the nape is red in the male and blackish in the female.[3] The face is white and has an olive-brown malar, dusky ear coverts and a white supercilium.[4] The chin and throat are white and often have dark streaks or spots. The upperparts are bronzy-green. The flight feathers are brown, with greenish-bronze edges. The tail is black above and grey-black below. The underparts are greenish-yellow, with broad brown streaks.[3] The beak is greyish, the legs are olive or grey, and the iris is chesnut.[4] The juvenile bird is duller, and its upperparts do not have a bronze tone.[3]
Distribution and habitat
This woodpecker is found in the Upper Guinean forests of West Africa,[4] in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Togo.[5] Its habitat is open forest, forest edges, clearings, secondary forest and woodlands, up to Script error: No such module "convert". in elevation.[3] It is also found in swamps, plantations and gardens.[4]
Behaviour
The melancholy woodpecker eats insects in the canopy. It forages in families and joins mixed-species foraging flocks. It sometimes drums quietly and stridently. Its calls include a tinny trill, a series of rrek and rrak notes, b-ddddddd-d-it, br-r-r-r-r-r-r and zh-dzeeeep. It calls pit notes in disputes.[4] Breeding may occur from December to March.[3]
Status
The species has a large range and stable population, so the IUCN has assessed it as a least-concern species.[5]
References
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