Grey-headed Woodpecker

How to identify

Field marks

1. Male has red from the forehead to the forecrown
2. Gray head, black lores and a fine black moustachial stripe
3. Gray-green back and wings; pale yellow rump

Male, female and young

The female lacks red on the crown, with fine black streaks instead.

Voice

A loud call closely resembling loud human laughter.

Where and when it's recorded

Busiest months: February–May · Most records: China, India, South Korea

Grey-headed Woodpecker has been recorded at 1,191 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 46 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. Wildlife Institute of IndiaIndia1,542 records
2. SattalIndia1,133 records
3. Olympic Forest Park SouthChina1,010 records

Countries and regions with the most records

ChinaIndiaSouth KoreaNepalThailandGermanyCzechiaUkraine

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The grey-headed woodpecker (Picus canus), also known as the grey-faced woodpecker, is a Eurasian member of the woodpecker family, Picidae. Along with the more commonly found European green woodpecker and the Iberian green woodpecker, it is one of three closely related species found in Europe. Its distribution also stretches across large parts of the central and Eastern Palaearctic, all the way to the Pacific Ocean and south to the Himalaya and the Malay Peninsula.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

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