Picus awokera
Silhouette: Martin Bulla, based on John Cox's illustration · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
Japanese green woodpecker or Japanese woodpecker (Picus awokera) is a medium-sized woodpecker similar and closely related to the European green woodpecker, but endemic to Japan. This species reaches about 30 cm in length, with bright green wings and tail, a red or black mustache and crown (as opposed to the black face of the green woodpecker), gray head, neck, and chest, and white underparts with black markings.
The bill is yellow, the legs and feet are light gray colored. The iris is red. This woodpecker is loudly before and after the breeding season. Their known calls are an individually, loud and whip-crack-similar pijo, and a ket, ket with two syllables. They also drum, and these drumrolls are very fast and long.
This woodpecker is found in most big islands of Japan, and also smaller islands like Tobishima, Awashima, Sado and Tsushima. The total distribution area is as big as 281.000 km2. Japanese green woodpeckers live in the north in open mixed forests, in the south in warm-temperate evergreen forests, but also in parks and gardens. They avoid older coniferous monocultures. The species is in their occurrence... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nikko National Park | 🇯🇵 Japan |
More parks will be added in future updates.
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Japanese Green Woodpecker sighting in Tokyo on a given day, based on 1,054 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 66th most-seen of the 229 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February–July and October
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Japanese Green Woodpecker in Tokyo on a given day, against under 5% in August–September and November–January, the lowest months.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Japanese Green 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.
2nd of 5
Of the 5 cities where we can rate Japanese Green Woodpecker sightings, Tokyo ranks 2nd at about 10%. The best odds are in Sendai (Japan, about 30%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Japanese Green Woodpecker is recorded against all the birds logged in Tokyo (1,054 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.
