The Story
On June 23, 2017, I photographed this Lineated Woodpecker (Dryocopus lineatus) in Manizales, Caldas, Colombia. It is a very large woodpecker, resident from southern Mexico to northern Argentina. It lives at forest borders and in other open woodland. It eats mainly insects, especially ants and their larvae, along with seeds, fruit and nuts. Manizales sits on the steep ridges of Colombia’s Central Cordillera, near the Nevado del Ruiz volcano, which rises to 5,321 meters.
I used a Canon EOS 70D and the EF400mm f/5.6L USM for this one, at 1/250 sec, f/11, ISO 400. IUCN lists the Lineated Woodpecker as Least Concern with an increasing population, and the city of Manizales owns and protects forest fragments such as the Ecoparque Los Yarumos inside its urban area.
©2018 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Lineated Woodpecker (Dryocopus lineatus) 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 2025), with the population trend listed as increasing. Source: IUCN Red List