Rufous-headed Woodpecker

The Rufous is classified as a bamboo specialist. There are 19 other bird species classified as bamboo specialists, with another 10 or so species in Tambopata.

In July 1998 while on a Gone Wild Productions expedition into the Tambopata region of Peru, we found the first ever-active nest site of the species, Celeus spectabilis.

Never before had an active Rufous nest been filmed and documented. The voice had never been described. It's food unknown and the breeding season was assumed to be June-November.

Andrew W. Kratter found the first nest back in 1992, but only recently published a paper on it in 1998. In his paper he describes the nest being found in a dead tree, similar to the tree we found, and with the soft pith. The only observation Katter made of the behavior was that two adult birds flew in and out of a hole several times. He did not find a nest with young.

Rufous-headed woodpeckers are very hard to find. Not only are they rare but each pair have a large territory and they hardly ever sing. Except now we know they sing a lot during the breeding season when raising young.

What they feed on is still a bit of a mystery. We have seen them feeding on dead bamboo stems. It should be said at this point that bamboo stems do house a very unique community of invertebrates. The Rufous spends more time foraging on dead stems than live ones. When feeding on the live stems it just seems to drill holes and then leaves, rather than wait for prey to emerge and then eat it. The Rufous returns to the holes that it had made in the stems some 3-4 days later to find out what has colonized in the holes. If this is true then this represents some remarkable feeding behavior, since the birds would appear to be actively "farming" invertebrates from live bamboo stems. This behavior does warrant some further investigation.

As of 1998 the only collected specimens of this species are housed in the United States at the Louisiana State Museum in Baton Rogue.

(left) Looking through the lens of the camera at the first glimpse of baby Rufous in nest.

(right) This is what we saw. First live documentation of Rufous chick in nest.

(above) Moments after baby Rufous fledged its nest cavity.