The crown of the male Golden-tailed Woodpecker is largely red, although strongly suffused with black on the forehead. The male also shows a red malar stripe below the eye. In the female only the rear of the crown is red and the forehead and malar stripe are both black with white flecking. The upperbody is greenish, heavily spotted with white, and the underparts are boldly streaked.

Like most other woodpeckers, the powerful sharp bill is used to hammer into wood in search of invertebrate prey. It was once thought that woodpeckers possessed some kind of ‘shock-absorbing’ adaptations to the head morphology to absorb the impact of this demanding foraging technique and to prevent long-term brain damage. Recent research though has called this into question and woodpeckers, like bare-knuckled pugilists of yore, seem to just stoically absorb the punishment.

The tail feathers of this woodpecker, as in many members of the family, are curved and strongly reinforced. They are designed to be pressed against the branches of trees helping to brace the bird in position when pecking vigorously into wood. The shafts of these rigid feathers are golden-yellow in colour, lending this woodpecker its name.

The Golden-tailed Woodpecker has a peculiar and far-carrying call comprising a shrill shrieking note. It is repeated at fairly lengthy intervals and has been likened to the sound of a rusty nail being extracted from a plank.

Bird illustrations are from Sasol Birds of Southern Africa published by Struik Nature. Illustrations © by Norman Arlott are used with kind permission of the Arlott family.
www.struiknature.co.za