Hemicircus canente
Silhouette: Pepe Reigada · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~60% in a week ~90%
The heart-spotted woodpecker (Hemicircus canente) is a species of bird in the woodpecker family. It has a contrasting black and white plumage, a distinctively stubby body and a large wedge-shaped head making it easy to identify while its frequent calling make it easy to detect as it forage for invertebrates under the bark of the slender outer branches of trees. They move about in pairs or small groups and are often found in mixed-species foraging flocks. They have a wide distribution across Asia with populations in the forests of southwestern and central India which are slightly separated from their ranges in the Himalayas and Southeast Asia.
The heart-spotted woodpecker was described in 1832 by the French naturalist René Lesson from a specimen collected from Bago in Myanmar. He coined the binomial name Picus canente. The specific name is from Roman mythology: Canens was a sweet-voiced nymph, her husband was Picus. The species is now placed in the genus Hemicircus that was introduced in 1837 by the English naturalist William Swainson. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
A small, uniquely shaped, black and buff woodpecker with a... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Periyar National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Cat Tien National Park | 🇻🇳 Vietnam | |
| 3 | Khao Yai National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 4 | Kaeng Krachan National Park | 🇹🇭 Thailand | |
| 5 | Nagarhole National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Bandipur National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Mudumalai National Park | 🇮🇳 India |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Heart-spotted Woodpecker sighting in Periyar National Park on a given day, based on 513 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 56th most-seen of the 227 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 60%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
December to February
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Heart-spotted Woodpecker in Periyar National Park on a given day, against about 10% in March, May and July–August, the lowest months. Those are among Periyar National Park's driest months, with about 45 mm of rain a month against 410 mm in August.
Between 4 and 7 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Heart-spotted Woodpecker sightings with a recorded time, and about 6 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is most active around dawn and dusk.
Yes
Of the 7 parks where we can rate Heart-spotted Woodpecker sightings, Periyar National Park has the highest daily chance: about 20%. Next come Cat Tien National Park (Vietnam, about 10%) and Khao Yai National Park (Thailand, about 10%).
Same family: Picidae
The closest relatives of the Heart-spotted Woodpecker that you can see in Periyar National Park (family Picidae, Woodpeckers) are Black-rumped Flameback (about 40%), Malabar Flameback (about 40%) and Rufous Woodpecker (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Heart-spotted Woodpecker is recorded against all the birds logged in Periyar National Park (513 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.
