Leuconotopicus villosus
Silhouette: Edwin Price · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~60%
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 |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Hairy Woodpecker sighting in La Amistad International Park (Panama) on a given day, based on 1,243 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 124th most-seen of the 657 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.
February and June
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Hairy Woodpecker in La Amistad International Park (Panama) on a given day, against about 10% in March–May and July–January, the lowest months.
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.
26th of 51
Of the 51 parks where we can rate Hairy Woodpecker sightings, La Amistad International Park (Panama) ranks 26th at about 10%. The best odds are in Kluane National Park (Canada, about 40%), Yosemite National Park (United States, about 40%) and Rocky Mountain National Park (United States, about 40%). All parks ranked.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Hairy Woodpecker is recorded against all the birds logged in La Amistad International Park (Panama) (1,243 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.
