Kaempfer's woodpecker, also known as the Piauí woodpecker and previously as the caatinga woodpecker, is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is endemic to Brazil.
Region
Brazilian Cerrado
Typical Environment
Occurs patchily in the Cerrado biome of central and northeastern Brazil, especially along gallery forests and riparian corridors with dense bamboo thickets. It favors stands of native Guadua-type bamboo within seasonally dry woodland and savanna mosaics. Birds are most often detected in semi-open woodland edges and along streams where bamboo is abundant. The species tolerates some disturbance but declines where bamboo is removed or fire regimes are altered.
Altitude Range
100–1200 m
Climate Zone
Tropical
Ease of Keeping
Beginner friendly: 1/5
Kaempfer's woodpecker was known only from a single 1920s specimen before being rediscovered in 2006 in Brazil's Cerrado. It specializes in foraging on woody bamboo, probing and chiseling into culms for insects. Ongoing habitat loss from agriculture, fires, and fragmentation threatens its small, patchy population. It is also called the Piauí woodpecker in reference to the locality of the original specimen.
Temperament
solitary and territorial
Flight Pattern
undulating with short rapid wingbeats
Social Behavior
Usually seen singly or in pairs that maintain year-round territories. Nests are excavated in dead or decaying trunks or large bamboo culms; both sexes likely share excavation and incubation duties. Breeding is presumed to occur in the dry season when wood is easier to excavate and food remains available in bamboo.
Migratory Pattern
Resident
Song Description
Vocalizations include sharp, high-pitched squeals and whinnying calls given from perches within bamboo. Drumming is a brief, accelerating rattle on resonant stems or trunks.
Plumage
Warm cinnamon to buff head with a prominent crest; upperparts and wings rufous-brown heavily barred with black; underparts buffy with dark barring. The rump and back show contrasting pale buff to cinnamon tones against darker bars, giving a scaly appearance.
Diet
Feeds mainly on ants, termites, and wood-boring beetle larvae obtained by probing and chiseling. It frequently exploits bamboo internodes and nodes for concealed prey. It may occasionally take other insects or small arthropods and rarely supplements with fruit.
Preferred Environment
Forages in dense bamboo stands within gallery forest, riparian thickets, and adjacent Cerrado woodland edges. Most activity occurs from mid-levels to lower canopy on bamboo culms and nearby trunks.
