Chestnut Woodpecker

The chestnut woodpecker is about 26 to 32 cm (10 to 13 in) long. Subspecies C. e. hellmayri weighs 138 to 168 g (4.9 to 5.9 oz), C. e. leotaudi weighs 93 to 139 g (3.3 to 4.9 oz), and C. e. jumanus weighs 112 to 146 g (4.0 to 5.1 oz). Males of all subspecies have a wide bright red malar area and cheek; females have no red. In the nominate subspecies C. e. elegans adults of both sexes have a buffish cream forehead, crown, and crest. The rest of their head including the chin and throat are deep chestnut brown. They have deep rufous-chestnut upperparts with a cream-buff rump and uppertail coverts, and sometimes faint black bars on the back. Their flight feathers are blackish brown with rufous bars at their base. Their wing coverts have small white spots. Their tail feathers are blackish with some rufous on the outermost pair. Their underparts are dark chestnut brown; sometimes the belly and vent are lighter. Their flanks are a paler creamy cinnamon-buff and often have obscure darker bars. The adult's bill is ivory to yellow or greenish yellow, their iris red-brown to red, and their legs olive to dark gray. Juveniles are similar to adults but havea dull blackish face and darker mottling on their underparts. Subspecies C. e. hellmayri is somewhat darker than the nominate overall and especially on the crown; its wing coverts have more spots and the flight feathers more bars. C. e. …

The subspecies of the chestnut woodpecker are found thus:

C. e. hellmayri, eastern Venezuela, Guyana, western Suriname, and northern Roraima in Brazil C. e. deltanus, northeastern Venezuela's Delta Amacuro state C. e. leotaudi, Trinidad C. e. elegans, eastern Suriname, French Guiana, and northern Brazil north of the Amazon between the Rio Branco and the state of Amapá C. e. citreopygius, eastern Ecuador and eastern Peru C. e. jumanus, from eastern Colombia and southern Venezuela south through western and central Brazil into northern Bolivia The chestnut woodpecker inhabits the interior and edges of both dense and lighter forests. These include terra firme, gallery, and várzea forests. It also occurs in secondary forest and cocoa and other plantations. In elevation it ranges from sea level to 1,000 m (3,300 ft) in Venezuela, to 500 m (1,600 ft) in Colombia, to 1,100 m (3,600 ft) in Peru, and to 700 m (2,300 ft) in Ecuador (though usually below 500 m (1,600 ft) there).

The chestnut woodpecker's primary food is ants and termites; fly larvae and fruit are also significant parts of its diet. It forages singly, in pairs, or in small loose groups, and frequently joins mixed species feeding flocks. It mostly forages from the understorey to the sub-canopy, and usually on trunks and large limbs. It captures prey by gleaning from trees and by breaking open arboreal termitaria.