| There are two species of woodpecker in central Panama that present a particular identification challenge: Crimson-crested and Lineated Woodpeckers. It's tricky enough that I had misidentified the species pictured here until reviewing photos for this page. Male Crimson-cresteds are easily distinguished, but for the rest, the favored field mark is how close together the white stripes on the back are; in the Crimson-crested, forming a "V", in Lineated, much more parallel. But the truth in the field is often somewhere in between, and illustrates the need for using more than one field mark for proper bird i.d.! |
| The stills presented here are a bit blurry, but a review of clearer video offered the details I needed to reevaluate by identification of this bird. Crimson-crested shows white feathering at the base of the bill in all plumages, and the facial stripe of the female generally is much thicker than that of this bird. Lineated also shows more black on the cheek, and the male has a red moustache below the white stripe, which is not present here. The back plumage of the bird pictured here is complicated by the fact that the bird is apparently molting, but the stripes are far enough apart to be consistent with Lineated. The female Lineated Woodpecker pictured here was filmed on Semaphore Hill, below the Canopy Tower, in September 2004. |
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