The Story
This Cream-colored Woodpecker (Celeus flavus) clung to a pale, peeling trunk near La Macarena, in Meta, Colombia, near the Caño Morrocoy bridge, its creamy yellow head and crest bright against brown wings and a red patch on the face. Its main foods are ants and termites, with smaller but still significant amounts of fruit and seeds. It usually forages from the lower to middle levels of the forest, alone or more often in pairs or small groups, and it lives mostly below 400 meters. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I photographed it with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender, at 1/350 sec, f/16, ISO 3200. La Macarena lies where Colombia’s Andean, Amazonian and Orinoco regions meet, and tourism to nearby Caño Cristales is run through local associations of guides and boat operators.
©2023 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Cream-colored Woodpecker (Celeus flavus) belongs to the family Picidae (Woodpeckers) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2024), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List