Colaptes rubiginosus
Silhouette: FJDegrange · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
The golden-olive woodpecker (Colaptes rubiginosus) is a species of bird in the subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found from Mexico south and east through Panama, in every mainland South American country except Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
The golden-olive woodpecker was formally described in 1820 as Picus rubiginosis by the English zoologist William Swainson. The specific epithet is Latin meaning "rusty". Swainson specified the type locality as the "Spanish Main". In 1918 the Austrian ornithologist Carl Eduard Hellmayr restricted the location to Caracas, Venezuela. The golden-olive woodpecker is now one of 14 species placed in the genus Colaptes that was introduced in 1825 by the Irish zoologist Nicholas Aylward Vigors.
Nineteen subspecies are recognised: Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Guayaquil | 🇪🇨 Ecuador | |
| 2 | San Salvador | 🇸🇻 El Salvador | |
| 3 | Guatemala City | 🇬🇹 Guatemala | |
| 4 | Tegucigalpa | 🇭🇳 Honduras | |
| 5 | Medellín | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 6 | Cali | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 7 | San José | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 8 | Caracas | 🇻🇪 Venezuela |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Golden-olive Woodpecker sighting in Arenal Volcano National Park on a given day, based on 2,153 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 101st most-seen of the 503 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January–March, July and September–October
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Golden-olive Woodpecker in Arenal Volcano National Park on a given day, against about 10% in April–June, August and November–December, the lowest months.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Golden-olive Woodpecker sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
11th of 35
Of the 35 parks where we can rate Golden-olive Woodpecker sightings, Arenal Volcano National Park ranks 11th at about 10%. The best odds are in Brownsberg Nature Park (Suriname, about 50%), El Triunfo (Mexico, about 40%) and Main Ridge Forest Reserve (Trinidad and Tobago, about 30%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Picidae
The closest relatives of the Golden-olive Woodpecker that you can see in Arenal Volcano National Park (family Picidae, Woodpeckers) are Black-cheeked Woodpecker (about 50%), Hoffmann's Woodpecker (about 10%) and Smoky-brown Woodpecker (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Golden-olive Woodpecker is recorded against all the birds logged in Arenal Volcano National Park (2,153 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
