Veniliornis passerinus
Silhouette: Pepe Reigada · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~50%
The little woodpecker (Veniliornis passerinus) is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in every mainland South American country except Chile, Suriname, and Uruguay. In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the little woodpecker in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). He used the French name Le petit pic de S. Domingue and the Latin name Picus dominicensis minor. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the little woodpecker. Linnaeus included a terse description, coined the binomial name Picus passerinus and cited Brisson's work. Linnaeus mistakenly specified the type location as Dominica. This has been corrected to Cayenne in French Guiana. The specific name passerinus is from Latin and means "sparrow like".
The International... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Parque Estadual Encontro das Águas | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 2 | Chapada dos Guimarães National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 3 | Iberá National Park | 🇦🇷 Argentina | |
| 4 | Manu National Park | 🇵🇪 Peru | |
| 5 | Serra da Canastra National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 6 | Amacayacu National Natural Park | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 7 | Yasuní National Park | 🇪🇨 Ecuador | |
| 8 | Emas National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 9 | Tambopata National Reserve | 🇵🇪 Peru | |
| 10 | Sierra de la Macarena National Park | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 11 | Chapada Diamantina National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 12 | Podocarpus National Park | 🇪🇨 Ecuador |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fortaleza | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 2 | João Pessoa | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 3 | Goiânia | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 4 | Campo Grande | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 5 | Recife | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 6 | Santa Cruz de la Sierra | 🇧🇴 Bolivia | |
| 7 | Asuncion | 🇵🇾 Paraguay | |
| 8 | Belo Horizonte | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 9 | Maceió | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 10 | Brasilia | 🇧🇷 Brazil |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Little Woodpecker sighting in Serra da Canastra National Park on a given day, based on 55 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 156th most-seen of the 294 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 50%, if each day is a fresh chance.
August and October
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Little Woodpecker in Serra da Canastra National Park on a given day, against under 5% in September and December–February, the lowest months.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Little 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.
5th of 12
Of the 12 parks where we can rate Little Woodpecker sightings, Serra da Canastra National Park ranks 5th at about 10%. The best odds are in Parque Estadual Encontro das Águas (Brazil, about 20%), Chapada dos Guimarães National Park (Brazil, about 20%) and Iberá National Park (Argentina, about 20%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Little Woodpecker is recorded against all the birds logged in Serra da Canastra National Park (55 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.
