The Story
I photographed this Yellow-tufted Woodpecker (Melanerpes cruentatus) at the Reserva Natural y Ecoturística La Avispa, near Florencia, Caquetá, Colombia, in January 2021. It lives in open humid forest, both várzea and terra firme, and also in secondary forest, woodland edges and burned areas with scattered standing trees. Its rump and upper tail coverts are white, which shows in flight, and its tail is black. It is social and gregarious, and its diet is mostly insects and fruit. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I made this frame with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11, at 1/500 sec, f/11, ISO 1600, +1.5 EV. Caquetá Encanta, the tourism site of the Florencia Chamber of Commerce, describes La Avispa as a 232-hectare natural space that uses tourism to show people why the environment needs protecting.
©2021 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Yellow-tufted Woodpecker (Melanerpes cruentatus) 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