Hoffmann's Woodpecker

How to find it

Look in open, disturbed places such as gardens, parks, coffee farms and pastures rather than dense mature forest, which it avoids. Parks with large trees are especially good, because the bird needs dead snags for nesting. It drums on dead trunks, and sometimes on antennas or wooden house siding, so listen for drumming. Learn the laughing call and the churring, because patience and knowing its calls usually lead to a sighting. Garden feeders can also bring it close, as a male photographed near Monteverde shows.

How to recognise it

This is a medium-sized woodpecker with a grey body and a strongly barred black and white back. The rump is white and the underside is pale grey-buff. A yellow patch sits in the middle of the belly, though it is hard to see in the field, so lean on the back pattern and the head.

The male has a red crown and a yellow nape. The female lacks the red crown: she has a white forehead and crown, with a smaller yellow nape. Young birds are duller, with less white above and less yellow on the belly. A young bird was photographed at Zamora Estates near San Jose, a reminder that juveniles share the gardens with adults.

What it sounds like

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

Behaviour and diet

On the Nicoya Peninsula it is frequently seen searching dead wood and bark for insect larvae, ants and beetles. Costa Rican sources also list fruits of Ficus, Cecropia and other trees, plus nectar from balsa flowers.

It nests in tree cavities, in dead trees and stumps, often in open farmland, coffee plantations and parks of the Central Valley. A study found nests between 1 and 8 m high. It also wanders outside the breeding season.

Where it lives

It originally lived in Costa Rica's dry tropical forest, and it still lives in dry and deciduous forest. Deforestation let it spread into open areas such as shade coffee farms, urban parks and house gardens.

In Costa Rica it ranges from sea level to over 2,100 m. It is now the most abundant woodpecker in the Central Valley below 1600 m, mainly in pastures, coffee farms and parks. It is common on the Pacific slope and is spreading onto the Caribbean slope, and in dry forest it is common from the Nicaraguan border south to Carara National Park.

Similar birds

South of Jaco, the very similar Red-crowned Woodpecker takes over. It has no yellow on the head, which is the plain way to tell the two apart. Orange-crowned hybrids between the two can turn up from Carara to Quepos, and birds that look intermediate are best left unidentified. Birders who know Red-bellied or Golden-fronted Woodpeckers from home will find both species look and sound very familiar.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Besides the official Spanish name Carpintero de Hoffmann, it is also called Carpintero Nuquigualdo, meaning yellow-naped woodpecker. The species is named after the German naturalist Karl Hoffmann, and its original scientific description used Costa Rica as the type locality.

Status and conservation

The AOCR lists it as a resident endemic (R-END), and the IUCN lists it as Least Concern.

Photography tips

It is easy to find in the Central Valley, where hotel gardens often hold a few. Patience and knowing its calls usually lead to a sighting.