Stripe-cheeked Woodpecker

The stripe-cheeked woodpecker is about 17 cm (6.7 in) long. Males and females have the same plumage except on their heads. Males are red from forehead to hindneck and very widely on the malar (cheek); the latter has a buffy white stripe above it. The rest of its face is olive. The female has red only from the back of the crown to the hindneck but is otherwise the same as the male. Adults of both sexes have bronze-green upperparts. Their flight feathers are mostly cinnamon-rufous with dark brown bars. Their tail is blackish with some cinnamon-rufous on the outer feathers. Their throat and upper breast are greenish olive; the latter has yellowish spots. The rest of their underparts are buffy white with greenish olive barring. Their shortish beak is blackish with a paler mandible, their iris sky-blue to pale gray, and the legs olive-gray. Juveniles are duller than adults; their throat and breast are mottled, and their underparts' barring is uneven. Males have red only from the rear crown to the hindneck.

The stripe-cheeked woodpecker is found from Veraguas Province in west-central Panama to Darién Province, mostly on the Caribbean side. Though there are sightings very near the Colombian border, the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society has no records from Colombia. The stripe-cheeked woodpecker inhabits the interior and edges of humid forest at elevations between 300 and 900 m (1,000 and 3,000 ft).

The stripe-cheeked woodpecker usually forages alone or in pairs, and also joins mixed species feeding flocks. It forages at the lower to mid-levels of the forest. It mostly feeds by pecking into the substrate. Its diet is not known in detail but does include ants.