Leuconotopicus villosus
Silhouette: Edwin Price · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~60% in a week ~90%
The hairy woodpecker (Leuconotopicus villosus) is a medium-sized woodpecker that is found over a large area of North America. It is approximately 250 mm (9.8 in) in length with a 380 mm (15 in) wingspan. With an estimated population in 2020 of almost nine million individuals, the hairy woodpecker is listed by the IUCN as a species of least concern. The species was previously placed in the genus Dryobates.
The hairy woodpecker was described and illustrated with a hand-coloured plate by the English naturalist Mark Catesby in his The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands which was published between 1729 and 1732. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he included the downy woodpecker, coined the binomial name Picus villosus and cited Catesby's book. The specific epithet villosus is the Latin word for "hairy". Linnaeus specified the type locality as America septentrionali (North America), with specific mention of Raccoon, New Jersey. The hairy woodpecker was formerly usually placed in either Dendrocopos or Picoides but a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2015 found that these genera... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Minneapolis [Saint Paul] | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | Montreal | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 3 | Calgary | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 4 | Toronto | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 5 | Philadelphia | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 6 | Detroit | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 7 | Washington | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 8 | Chicago | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 9 | Edmonton | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 10 | New York City | 🇺🇸 United States |
Possible
About 30% of wildlife watchers report a Hairy Woodpecker sighting in Calgary on a given day, based on 7,351 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 24th most-seen of the 259 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 60%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January to March
In those months about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Hairy Woodpecker in Calgary on a given day, against about 10% in July, the lowest month. Those are among Calgary's driest months, with about 20 mm of rain a month against 120 mm in June.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Hairy 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.
3rd of 24
Of the 24 cities where we can rate Hairy Woodpecker sightings, Calgary ranks 3rd at about 30%. The best odds are in Minneapolis [Saint Paul] (United States, about 40%) and Montreal (Canada, about 30%).
Same family: Picidae
The closest relatives of the Hairy Woodpecker that you can see in Calgary (family Picidae, Woodpeckers) are Northern Flicker (about 80%), Downy Woodpecker (about 60%) and Pileated Woodpecker (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Hairy Woodpecker is recorded against all the birds logged in Calgary (7,351 verified sightings), 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.
