Red-crowned Woodpecker

How to find it

Look for it in gardens and other non-forest places, and check forest edges, mangroves and partly cleared ground. Pure-looking Red-crowned birds are easy to see from Manuel Antonio National Park southward. Birds near Carara and Jaco are often hybrids with Hoffmann's. Garden and feeder stops are good places to see it, since it is a common visitor to artificial feeders and eats fruit. Scanning dead snags and posts is also a good way to find it.

How to recognise it

Both sexes have a zebra-barred black and white back and a white rump. The belly is pale buff with a red central patch.

Males have a red crown and nape. Females have a buff crown with a duller red nape, so even a female shows reddish at the back of the neck.

It is a small woodpecker, about 16 to 18.5 cm long. Young birds look duller, especially in the red areas of the head and neck.

In Costa Rica the simplest check is the head: the Red-crowned has no yellow on it.

What it sounds like

Recording: Henrry, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

You will usually find it alone or in pairs. It pecks at bark at mid height and checks broken branch ends for insects, which it probes, gleans or hammers out of wood. It often eats fruit and will visit feeders.

Pairs stay together all year, yet each bird sleeps alone in its own hole. In forest it feeds high up, but in more open places it comes down much lower. It can be a nuisance in fruit plantations and gardens.

Where it lives

This is a bird of open and edge habitats: forest edges, mangroves, dry scrub, secondary growth, gardens and farmland. Across its whole range it is found up to about 1,700 m elevation.

In Costa Rica it occurs in the southwest of the country, the northern end of its range. In the Pacific southwest it is the only woodpecker with a barred back. Where the Golden-naped Woodpecker stays in mature rainforest, the Red-crowned usually fills that role in edge and open habitats.

When to see it

Breeding in Costa Rica and Panama runs from February to July, and a Costa Rican account gives February to June. Pairs sometimes raise two broods a year.

Similar birds

South of Jaco the Red-crowned replaces the very similar Hoffmann's Woodpecker. Hoffmann's males have a bright yellow or orange nape and females a pale yellow nape, while Red-crowned females show reddish on the nape instead. Around the Tarcoles River and a little to the south, birds with orange on the back of the neck point to mixed parentage, so some birds there cannot be named with certainty.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Besides the AOCR name Carpintero Nuquirrojo, Spanish sources also call it Carpintero Habado and Carpintero Coronirrojo.

Status and conservation

It is a resident (R on the AOCR list), rated Least Concern by the IUCN with a stable population, and considered abundant in Costa Rica.

Photography tips

It nests and sleeps in holes in dead trees, cacti or posts, from about 3 to 23 m up, so scanning dead snags and posts is a good way to find it. In open places it comes down much lower than in forest, which makes for easier views. Garden and feeder stops give close chances.