The chestnut woodpecker (Celeus elegans) a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found on Trinidad and in every mainland South American country except Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
Taxonomy and systematics
The chestnut woodpecker has these six subspecies: Several more subspecies have been proposed as divisions of the six, but all have been determined to be either indistinguishable from one of the six, an aberrant form of one of them, or a hybrid.
Description
The chestnut woodpecker is about long. Subspecies C. e. hellmayri weighs , C. e. leotaudi weighs , and C. e. jumanus weighs . Males of all subspecies have a wide bright red malar area and cheek; females have no red. In the nominate subspecies C. e. elegans adults of both sexes have a buffish cream forehead, crown, and crest. The rest of their head including the chin and throat are deep chestnut brown. They have deep rufous-chestnut upperparts with a cream-buff rump and uppertail coverts, and sometimes faint black bars on the back. Their flight feathers are blackish brown with rufous bars at their base. Their wing coverts have small white spots. Their tail feathers are blackish with some rufous on the outermost pair. Their underparts are dark chestnut brown; sometimes the belly and vent are lighter. Their flanks are a paler creamy cinnamon-buff and often have obscure darker bars. The adult's bill is ivory to yellow or greenish yellow, their iris red-brown to red, and their legs olive to dark gray. Juveniles are similar to adults but havea dull blackish face and darker mottling on their underparts.
Behavior
Movement
The chestnut woodpecker is a year-round resident throughout its range.