Micropternus brachyurus
Silhouette: Pepe Reigada · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
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 |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Rufous Woodpecker sighting in Gunung Leuser National Park on a given day, based on 14 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 107th most-seen of the 166 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.
June, August and November–December
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Rufous Woodpecker in Gunung Leuser National Park on a given day, against under 5% in January–May, July and September–October, 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.
20th of 32
Of the 32 parks where we can rate Rufous Woodpecker sightings, Gunung Leuser National Park ranks 20th at under 5%. 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 Gunung Leuser National Park (family Picidae, Woodpeckers) are Crimson-winged Woodpecker (about 20%), Banded Woodpecker (about 10%) and Sunda Pygmy Woodpecker (about 10%), 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 Gunung Leuser National Park (14 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.
