Imperial Woodpecker - Campephilus imperialis
Last week Science Friday posted a video of an Imperial Woodpecker. You can watch the video and listen to the interview with SF video editor Flora Lichtman here. I plan on volunteering at the Field Museum on Thursday and hope to look up and photograph one of their specimens there, in the meantime I found this image on Wikipedia. Imperials (native to Mexico) are closely related to our Ivory-billed woodpeckers, which is also most likely extinct. Ivory-billed are large, but the Imperials are massive. They would average 2 feet from head to tail. Anyway, check out the video on SF. It's truly amazing, but a little sad. As ornithologist and writer Tim Gallagher said, it's like seeing a ghost.
I believe I might have spotted one of these when I was in Belize this past April. Massive bird. At first I thought it was a Pileated but it was without a stripe over the eye. I'll have to see if I can find some photos.
ReplyDeleteTotally amazing! Can you imagine seeing one of these?
ReplyDeleteI don't think I can imagine. Even looking at that footage, it's hard to get a sense of just how large they are (were?). I'll post photos of Field Museum specimens later this week.
ReplyDelete@Unknown - that would be pretty amazing if you had seen one, but at this point if there are any left at all in the wild, it's probably a handful. Their preferred habitat was that of old growth pine in Mexican montane forests. Perhaps what you saw was a Pale-billed Woodpecker? It's in the same genus as Imperial, but has a wider range: Mexico to Panama.
That is amazing, thanks for the video link. What a spectacular bird. I stood watching our Great spotted woodpecker at the top of a tree this morning, it was very noisy, annoyed at a squirrel possibly? I do hope there are some still out there?
ReplyDeletetwo feet? TWO FEET??!!
ReplyDeleteYep 2 ft - a very large bird. When I post a specimen photo later this week, I'll include a couple other species as point of ref. for size.
ReplyDelete@ Julie - unfortunately, as touched on the vid (I think) even if a few have survived, it's not enough to sustain a breeding population. But who knows?
Sad indeed! What incredible birds. Thank you so much for sharing the video. I'm glad to know about these guys...I hope they can survive.
ReplyDeleteDiana, I'll be coming to you from now on for bird identification. That was the bird I saw without a doubt. :)
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