Black-cheeked Woodpecker

How to find it

Listen first: steady sharp tapping on a trail is often this bird, and drumming is usually heard before it is seen. Look at mid-level on trunks and thick branches in humid Caribbean lowland forest. La Selva and most forested sites in the Caribbean lowlands and foothills are good for woodpeckers, and the remnant forests of northeastern Costa Rica are especially rich. It often visits banana plants and flowering trees. Ripening bananas greatly improve the chance of seeing it at a garden on the Turrialba Volcano slope. Patience and knowing its calls usually lead to a sighting where it occurs.

How to recognise it

The adult male has a golden yellow forehead, a red crown and nape, and black sides of the head. The back is barred black and white, and the rump is white.

Look for these marks:

A big black face mask.

A white patch behind the eye.

A black back with narrow white bars.

A large white rump patch.

A small red spot in the middle of the belly, in both sexes.

Females look similar, but the central crown is black, with red only on the hindcrown and nape, and the forehead is whitish. In Costa Rica the bird is about 18.5 cm long and weighs about 63 g.

What it sounds like

Recording: jmillsand, CC0 1.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

This is an energetic, vocal woodpecker, often tapping or drumming on trunks, and it is often seen in pairs or family groups. On forest trails it often stays at mid-level, clinging to trunks and thick branches.

It nests in a hole in a dead trunk or branch, 6 to 30 m up, and breeds from March to June. Tityra birds sometimes push it out of its nest. Pairs may roost together in one cavity or sleep separately.

Where it lives

It lives in the canopy and at the edges of humid forest, old secondary forest and disturbed riverside forest. Range-wide it also likes forest borders, tall scattered trees in clearings and abandoned plantations, and it sometimes enters gardens.

On the Caribbean slope it is common in the lowlands and foothills, reaching about 700 m in the north and 900 m in the southeast. It also reaches the Pacific side in the Cordillera de Guanacaste, at low and middle elevations. It becomes less numerous west of the Río Frío area.

Similar birds

No other Caribbean-slope woodpecker in Costa Rica has red on the belly, so the red belly spot separates it. Range-wide it is usually less numerous and less conspicuous than the larger Golden-fronted Woodpecker, which often shares the same areas. On the southwest Pacific side the similar Golden-naped Woodpecker replaces it, and that species is not as common.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Ricans use several names for it. The AOCR name is Carpintero Carinegro, and others include carpintero cara negra, carpintero de antifaz, carpintero centroamericano, carpintero, pájaro carpintero and carpinterito carinegro. The Tityra that pushes it out of its nest hole is known locally as the 'pájaro chancho'.

Status and conservation

It is a resident (R) on the AOCR list, and the IUCN rates the species Least Concern.

Photography tips

A photographer on a Costa Rica trip got several of these woodpeckers at a banana-feeding spot, using a 500 mm lens on a tripod at about 1/500 sec and ISO 1600. Knowing its calls and being patient usually lead to a sighting.