Micropternus brachyurus
Silhouette: Pepe Reigada · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~60%
The rufous woodpecker (Micropternus brachyurus) is a medium-sized brown woodpecker native to South and Southeast Asia. It is short-billed, foraging in pairs on small insects, particularly ants and termites, in scrub, evergreen, and deciduous forests and is noted for building its nest within the carton nests of arboreal ants in the genus Crematogaster. It was for sometime placed in the otherwise Neotropical genus Celeus but this has been shown to be a case of evolutionary convergence and molecular phylogenetic studies support its placement in the monotypic genus Micropternus.
This species was formerly placed in the South American genus Celeus due to external resemblance but its disjunct distribution placed it in doubt. Studied in 2006 based on DNA sequence comparisons have confirmed that the rufous woodpecker is not closely related to Celeus and is a sister of the genus Meiglyptes and best placed within the monotypic genus Micropternus. The genus Micropternus was erected by Edward Blyth who separated it from Meiglyptes based on the short first toe with reduced claw. Other genus characters are the short bill lacking a nasal ridge. The nostrils are round and the outer tail... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tamluk | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Thrissur | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Savar | 🇧🇩 Bangladesh | |
| 4 | Kochi | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Bhubaneshwar | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Kozhikode | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Kolkata | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Mumbai | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 9 | Kuala Lumpur | 🇲🇾 Malaysia | |
| 10 | Singapore | 🇸🇬 Singapore |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Rufous Woodpecker sighting in Danum Valley Conservation Area on a given day, based on 177 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 120th most-seen of the 258 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 60%, if each day is a fresh chance.
September
In that month about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Rufous Woodpecker in Danum Valley Conservation Area on a given day, against under 5% in February–March and July, the lowest months.
Between 3 and 6 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Rufous Woodpecker sightings with a recorded time, and about 6 in 10 of them come between 6 pm and 6 am: it is most active around dawn and dusk.
8th of 32
Of the 32 parks where we can rate Rufous Woodpecker sightings, Danum Valley Conservation Area ranks 8th at about 10%. The best odds are in Way Kambas National Park (Indonesia, about 30%), Khao Luang National Park (Thailand, about 20%) and Periyar National Park (India, about 20%).
Same family: Picidae
The closest relatives of the Rufous Woodpecker that you can see in Danum Valley Conservation Area (family Picidae, Woodpeckers) are Rufous Piculet (about 20%), White-rumped Woodpecker (about 20%) and Buff-necked Woodpecker (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Rufous Woodpecker is recorded against all the birds logged in Danum Valley Conservation Area (177 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.
