Campethera maculosa
Silhouette: Pepe Reigada · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The little green woodpecker, or green-backed woodpecker (Campethera maculosa) is a species of bird in the family Picidae. It is widely distributed in tropical Africa, living in forest edges, clearings, and forest-shrub mosaics. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has assessed it as a least-concern species.
The little green woodpecker was formally described in 1826 as Picus maculosa from Senegal by the French zoologist Achille Valenciennes. The specific epithet is Latin meaning "spotted". The little green woodpecker is now one of ten species placed in the genus Campethera that was introduced in 1841 by the English zoologist George Robert Gray.
Five subspecies are recognised: C... Wikipedia →
Call1:12
Guinea-Bissau · 2019
© Antonio Xeira · XC705268 · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Drumming0:35
Ghana · 2021
© Brendan Sloan · XC689820 · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Recording0:08
Gabon · 2021
© bureaubenjamin · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mikumi National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 2 | Lake Mburo National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 3 | Kafue National Park | 🇿🇲 Zambia | |
| 4 | Gorongosa National Park | 🇲🇿 Mozambique | |
| 5 | Masai Mara National Reserve | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 6 | Akagera National Park | 🇷🇼 Rwanda | |
| 7 | Queen Elizabeth National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kigali | 🇷🇼 Rwanda |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Little Green Woodpecker sighting in Kafue National Park on a given day, based on 22 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 225th most-seen of the 338 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.
July
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Little Green Woodpecker in Kafue National Park on a given day, against under 5% in August–October and December–June, the lowest months. That is one of Kafue National Park's driest months, with almost no rain against 290 mm in January.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Little 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.
3rd of 7
Of the 7 parks where we can rate Little Green Woodpecker sightings, Kafue National Park ranks 3rd at under 5%. The best odds are in Mikumi National Park (Tanzania, about 10%) and Lake Mburo National Park (Uganda, about 10%).
Same genus: Campethera
The closest relatives of the Little Green Woodpecker that you can see in Kafue National Park (genus Campethera, African Green Woodpeckers) are Golden-tailed Woodpecker (about 10%) and Bennett's Woodpecker (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Little Green Woodpecker is recorded against all the birds logged in Kafue National Park (22 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.
