Animal
Red-bellied woodpecker
Melanerpes carolinus
A medium-sized (10 inch) woodpecker with a bold red cap (males) or red nape (females), zebra-barred black-and-white back, and a pale belly with a faint reddish wash that's almost never visible (the misleading common name). Year-round resident on Staten Island. Range has expanded northward over the past 50 years — another climate-change-driven bird range shift, like the Carolina wren. Distinctive rolling call carries through woodlands.
Scientific
Melanerpes carolinus is a 2.5 oz woodpecker. Males have a continuous red crown from forehead to nape; females have only the red nape. Strong zebra-barred black-and-white back. The “red belly” is a faint pinkish-red wash on the lower belly, almost never visible in field — the species was named by ornithologists examining specimens in hand, not in the field.
Range historically restricted to the southeastern U.S.; over the past 50 years has expanded north into the Northeast and [[great-lakes|Great Lakes]] — a climate-driven range shift parallel to [[carolina-wren|Carolina wren]]‘s expansion. Now common in NYC.
Diet: insects, fruits, seeds, nuts. Caches food in bark crevices. Will visit suet feeders and [[sunflower|sunflower]]-seed feeders readily.
On Staten Island
Year-round resident across the borough’s parks, residential trees, woodland edges. Common at backyard suet feeders. Distinctive rolling “kwirr” call carries through woodlands and is among the borough’s recognizable bird sounds.
See also
Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.
- Counterpart to: [[carolina-wren]]
- Member of: [[animal]]
- Contained by: [[staten-island]]
Sources
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology eBird and species accounts
- Long-term Melanerpes range-expansion literature
- NYC Audubon SI bird-survey records
Rooted in life.
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