Mombasa Woodpecker Campethera mombassica Scientific name definitions

c. 22 cm; 50–71 g. Male has olive-green forehead and crown feathers with broad red tips, red nape, buffish lores, short white supercilium, whitish sides of head and neck with black streaks, short red malar stripe streaked black; whitish chin and throat, ­sometimes with few dark streaks or spots; bright golden-green upperparts with fine yellowish-white spots and shaft streaks; brown flight-feathers with some spots; uppertail golden-green to olive-brown, outer feathers faintly barred; white or buffy-white below, breast and flanks tinged yellowish, fairly broad blackish streaks narrower on flanks and belly; underwing as above, coverts paler; undertail brownish, suffused yellow; medium-length bill broad-based, culmen slightly decurved, slate-grey, distinct green tone on lower mandible; iris dark reddish, orbital skin grey; legs greenish to olive or olive-grey. Distinguished from similar C. abingoni by much brighter upperparts with small dots, not bars, paler throat, olive-green bases of crown feathers, different vocalizations. Female differs in having dark olive-green forehead and crown with small yellow-buff spots, olive-grey malar with black and white streaks and spots. Juvenile resembles female, but duller, more spotted above, more heavily streaked below, sometimes some bars on lower underparts, eyes more brownish or greyish.

S Somalia, coastal Kenya (including R Tana inland to Garissa) and NE Tanzania.

Accelerating series ending with short “yuk”, distinctly different from C. abingoni, initial notes less buzzing; intimate calls include grating “drrrrdddt”. Very rarely, if ever, drums.