Juvenile Red-Bellied Woodpecker, August 14, 2022
I saw this juvenile Red-Bellied Woodpecker on a Canary Island Date Palm. The pale colored grey head with light red on the head indicates a juvenile. Another clue - juvenile birds are less coordinated than adults when foraging and may wedge their tail feathers in bark when hopping down the trunk of a tree (Birds of the World). This photo shows that.
Maybe you wonder whether this is a male or female. Too early to tell. In a few weeks, female and male become clear. Photo credit of female and male.
So, the Red-Bellied is a medium-sized woodpecker, about 24 cm in length with a zebra-patterned back. Eyes are deep red to red-brown. The actual "red belly" is limited to a small portion of the ventral region (front of the body) between the tarsi and is difficult to observe unless you're lucky as I was in this photograph.
Maybe you're scratching your head about the location of that red color. What is the tarsi? It's the part of a bird's leg between what appears to be a backward-facing 'knee' and what appears to be an 'ankle.' This photo from All About Birds (Cornell) gives you another chance to identify the location of red that gives the red-bellied that name.
