Pájaro carpintero de Kaempfer

The brilliantly colored Kaempfer’s Woodpecker is endemic to the Cerrado, a sprawling, dry tropical savanna of open woodlands and riparian gallery forests in the central highlands of Brazil and neighboring Bolivia. The Cerrado biome is the most biodiverse savanna in the world, home to 30 endemic bird species found nowhere else in the world, including the Critically Endangered Blue-eyed Ground Dove. The Cerrado also hosts hundreds of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, as well as thousands of plants unique to the region.

A bamboo specialist, the Kaempfer’s Woodpecker drills holes into dead bamboo canes in search of the ant colonies that provide its main food. On the Cerrado, bamboo is largely restricted to dense patches of increasingly fragmented forest, often along waterways. The Kaempfer’s Woodpecker has a rather odd distribution within its range as a result, and is scattered across hundreds of small, isolated fragments of dense forest with bamboo on the vast Cerrado savanna landscape.

First collected in 1926, the Kaempfer’s Woodpecker was considered a subspecies of the Rufous-headed Woodpecker based on a single bird. It was 80 years before this bird was seen again, at which point many had considered it to be extinct. After its rediscovery, the Kaempfer’s Woodpecker was recognized as a separate species based on differences in its habitat, size, and plumage, as well as the great distance between this species’ range and that of the Rufous-headed Woodpecker. Genetic studies in the 2010s confirmed that this once-lost bird is, in fact, its own distinct species.

The biggest threat to the Kaempfer’s Woodpecker is the ongoing loss, degradation, and fragmentation of its habitat. There are very few protected areas in the Cerrado — less than two percent of the entire biome — and Kaempfer’s Woodpeckers are not known to occur in any of them. In addition, because of its scattered distribution, there is no clear stronghold site for the species, making it harder to protect and putting it at even greater risk of extinction. Students at Brazil’s University of Tocantins have been studying this species for several years and learning more about its range, which is vast but increasingly fragmented by agricultural activities, infrastructure development, and land-clearing for cattle ranching.

The Kaempfer’s Woodpecker needs our help to overcome these threats to its survival. At ABC, we’re inspired by the wonder of birds and driven by our responsibility to find solutions to meet their greatest challenges. ABC works with FAPTO (Fundação de Apoio Científico e Tecnológico do Tocantins) at the University of Tocantins to educate landowners about the Kaempfer’s Woodpecker and to create private protected reserves for this striking species.

The Kaempfer’s Woodpecker is striking and distinctive, with its wild, scruffy chestnut mohawk and yellow-and-black spots and bands across its wings and back, the pattern somewhere between leopard and zebra. Chestnut flight feathers on the wings match the color of the head, and the black tail is paired with a bold black patch covering the breast. The rest of the underparts match the yellow-to-cream color of the back. The chisel-like bill is a pale cream color. Males and females are similar, except that males show bright red smears stretching back from the eye and bill, a bit like sloppily applied lipstick.

The most common vocalization known from the Kaempfer’s Woodpecker is a high, descending laugh composed of a quick, upswept squeal followed by a short chuckled series of descending nasal notes. These woodpeckers typically drum on bamboo, a rapid, evenly paced burst, often with a sharp tonal quality characteristic of its preferred substrate.

The Kaempfer’s Woodpecker is endemic to Brazil’s extensive tropical woodland-savanna, or Cerrado. Specifically, it uses wooded areas, such as native palm forests and riparian woodlands along streams.

• Most frequently found in bamboo groves, especially the species Guadua paniculata

The Kaempfer’s Woodpecker is poorly represented in the scientific literature, having only recently been rediscovered and determined to be a unique species. As such, little is known of its biology or life history. However, some aspects of its life history may be similar to those of other closely related woodpeckers.