Heart-spotted Woodpecker
Photo: Jason Thompson · CC BY 2.0

Woodpeckers

Heart-spotted Woodpecker

Hemicircus canente

LCLeast Concern
Family
Woodpeckers (Picidae)
Order
Piciformes

Overview

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.

Summary from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Range and habitat

Humid forest of peninsular India, Myanmar, Thailand, and Indochina.

Range description: AviList Global Avian Checklist.

Sources and further reading

Last updated September 29, 2026.