Dendropicos obsoletus
The Brown-backed Woodpecker, *Dendropicos obsoletus*, is a small and distinctive African woodpecker, typically measuring between 13 to 16 cm in length and weighing 20-30 grams. Its most striking field mark, and the origin of its common name, is its plain, unstreaked brown upperparts, a unique characteristic among African woodpeckers, contrasting with the paler, streaked underparts. Males sport a small, inconspicuous red patch on the nape, which is absent in females, marking the primary sexual...
Found in a variety of open woodlands, savanna, acacia scrub, and disturbed areas including suburban gardens, primarily at low to moderate elevations.
Primarily insectivorous, feeding on ants, termites, beetle larvae, and other invertebrates gleaned from bark and rotten wood; occasionally consumes tree sap or fruit.
Brown-backed Woodpeckers are diurnal, active from dawn to dusk, often roosting individually in self-excavated tree cavities. Their foraging strategy primarily involves gleaning insects from bark surfaces, probing into crevices, and occasionally pecking at dead wood, but they rarely engage in the ...
The Brown-backed Woodpecker boasts a wide, though somewhat disjunct, distribution across sub-Saharan Africa. Its range extends from Senegal and Gambia in West Africa, eastward through the Sahel region to Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia in East Africa. From there, it stretches south through much of...
Least Concern
- The Brown-backed Woodpecker is one of the few woodpecker species in Africa with a plain, unstreaked brown back, making it quite unique in appearance. - Despite being a woodpecker, it is known more for gleaning insects from the surface of bark rather than powerful drilling into wood. - Males hav...