Cinnamon Woodpecker Celeus loricatus Scientific name definitions

The Cinnamon Woodpecker is a rather small member of the genus Celeus, with a cinnamon-colored crest, and ranges from Nicaragua south along the Caribbean slope of Costa Rica and Panama to the Pacific slope of Colombia and northwestern Ecuador. It is brightly plumaged cinnamon rufous above, with fine black bars, and white below with sharp black chevrons. As with other species in the genus, males differ by having a red flicker-like moustache, and a brighter yellow bill. In Central America, overlaps with the Chestnut-colored Woodpecker (Celeus castaneus), which has a paler rufous crest, and dark chesnut underparts with black chevrons. Cinnamon prefers the canopy of tall forest, while Chestnut-colored is more likely to be found in secondary woodland and at the edge of clearings. Cinnamon also ranges higher in elevation into the foothills. In South America, the Cinnamon Woodpecker is the only Celeus on the Pacific slope, and likewise is found from the lowland forests up into the lower foothills along the west slope of the Andes. Most other South American Celeus are Amazonian in distribution. The call is rather unique ringing “peee-peee-pew-pu,” quite different from Chestnut-colored. Like other Celeus woodpeckers, it is known to forage on ants and termites.

c. 19–23 cm; 74–83 g. Male has rufous head and bushy crest, crown streaked black, red-tipped black chin, throat and malar area, sometimes also a few red tips around eye; upperparts, including wing-coverts and tertials, dark rufous, rump paler, all narrowly barred black; blackish flight-feathers with very broad rufous bars; uppertail black, very broadly barred buff to whitish; upper breast light rufous with black edges and tips, rest of underparts paler buff, with striking bold black markings on breast, arrowhead bars on flanks and belly to undertail-coverts; rufous under­wing barred black on flight-feathers; medium-long bill almost pointed, culmen slightly curved, narrow across nostrils, greyish to yellowish; iris red; legs grey. Female lacks red on throat, head rather uniformly rufous. Juvenile much as adult but dusky-mottled on throat, less regularly marked below, male with red on face. Races differ mainly in amount of barring: diversus is largest, more cinnamon-tinged than nominate, has large red tips on throat, narrower black bars above, more widely spaced narower bars below, yellower bill; <em>mentalis</em> is smaller than previous, paler below, with less barring above and below; <em>innotatus</em> resembles previous, but even less marked, very weakly barred or even unbarred above, may lack crown streaks, plain below but for a few breast spots.

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Editor's Note: Additional distribution information for this taxon can be found in the 'Subspecies' article above. In the future we will develop a range-wide distribution article.

Ants and termites; also fruit , e.g. ripening bananas. Usually forages singly or in pairs; only occasionally joins mixed-species flocks. Active in or near canopy in forest interior; also at lower levels, particularly in open areas. Generally visits trunks, often thin ones, and twigs and branchlets; often clings to seedlings and bushes in undergrowth. Pecks frequently, and gleans to some extent; observed to peck into swollen nodes of laurel (Cordia alliodra) twigs and Cecropia trunks to reach ants, and into tunnels for termites.

Accelerating series of 3–5 fast ringing notes , descending in pitch and amplitude, e.g. “peee-peew-peu-pu”, sometimes introduced with “chuweéoo”; sharp, descending rolling chatter when agitated; also hard “chikikikirík”, squeaky “tititit-toò”, and “chweé-titit”. Drumrolls rather slow, short.