Bird watching in India / SAARC Region - Black-rumped Flameback

PLEASE! If you see any mistakes, I'm 100% sure that I have wrongly identified some birds.
So please let me know on my guestbook at the bottom of the page

The Black-rumped Flameback (Dinopium benghalense), also known as the lesser golden-backed Woodpecker or lesser goldenback, is a Woodpecker found widely distributed in the Indian subcontinent. It is one of the few Woodpeckers that are seen in urban areas. It has a characteristic rattling-whinnying call and an undulating flight. It is the only golden-backed Woodpecker with a black throat and black rump.

Distribution and habitat
This flameback is found mainly on the plains going up to an elevation of about 1200m in Pakistan, India south of the Himalayas and east till the western Assam valley and Meghalaya, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. It is associated with open forest and cultivation. They are often seen in urban areas with wooded avenues. It is somewhat rare in the Kutch and desert region of Rajasthan.

Range map from www.oiseaux.net - Ornithological Portal Oiseaux.net

www.oiseaux.net is one of those MUST visit pages if you're in to bird watching. You can find just about everything there

Description
The Black-rumped Flameback is a large species at 26–29 cm in length. It has a typical Woodpecker shape, and the golden yellow wing coverts are distinctive. The rump is black and not red as in the greater flameback. The underparts are white with dark chevron markings. The black throat finely marked with white immediately separates it from other golden backed Woodpeckers in the Indian region. The head is whitish with a black nape and throat, and there is a greyish eye patch. Unlike the greater flameback it has no dark moustachial stripes.

The adult male has a red crown and crest. Females have a black forecrown spotted with white, with red only on the rear crest. Young birds are like the female, but duller.

Like other Woodpeckers, this species has a straight pointed bill, a stiff tail to provide support against tree trunks, and zygodactyl feet, with two toes pointing forward, and two backward. The long tongue can be darted forward to capture insects.

Leucistic birds have been recorded. Two specimens of male birds from the northern Western Ghats have been noted to have red-tipped feathers on the malar region almost forming a malar stripe. A female specimen from Lucknow has been noted to have grown an abnormal downcurved hoopoe-like bill.

Leucism

(/ˈljuːkɪzəm/; or /ˈluːsɪzəm/) is a condition in which there is partial loss of pigmentation in an animal resulting in white, pale, or patchy coloration of the skin, hair, feathers, scales or cuticle, but not the eyes. Unlike albinism, it is caused by a reduction in multiple types of pigment, not just melanin.

Subspecies
The race in the arid northwestern India and Pakistan, dilutum, has pale yellow upperparts, a long crest and whiter underparts than the nominate race of the Gangetic plains. The upperparts have less spots. They prefer to breed in old gnarled tamarisks, Acacia and Dalbergia trunks. The nominate populations is found across India in the low elevations up to about 1000 m.

Southern Peninsular form puncticolle has the throat black with small triangular white spots and the upper parts are a bright golden-yellow.

The subspecies found in the Western Ghats is sometimes separated as tehminae (named after the wife of Salim Ali) and is more olive above, has fine spots on the black throat and the wing-covert spots are not distinct.

The southern Sri Lankan population treated as a subspecies D. b. psarodes (but treated as a species by some) has a crimson back and all the dark markings are blacker and more extensive. It hybridizes with the northern Sri Lankan race jaffnense which has a shorter beak. The Sri Lankan race psarodes is sometimes considered a distinct species although it is said to intergrade with jaffnense near Puttalam, Kekirawa and Trincomalee.

Listen to the Black-rumped Flameback

Sound from www.xeno-canto.org

Sound from www.xeno-canto.org

Behaviour and ecology
This species is normally seen in pairs or small parties and sometimes joins mixed-species foraging flocks. They forage from the ground to the canopy. They feed on insects mainly beetle larvae from under the bark, visit termite mounds and sometimes feed on nectar. As they make hopping movements around branches, they often conceal themselves from potential predators.[13] They adapt well in human-modified habitats making use of artificial constructions fallen fruits and even food scraps.

The breeding season varies with weather and is between February and July. They frequently drum during the breeding season. The nest hole is usually excavated by the birds and has a horizontal entrance and descends into a cavity. Sometimes birds may usurp the nest holes of other birds. Nests have also been noted in mud embankments. The eggs are laid inside the unlined cavity. The normal clutch is three and the eggs are elongate and glossy white. The eggs hatch after about 11 days of incubation. The chicks leave the nest after about 20 days.

In culture
In Sri Lanka these Woodpeckers go by the generic name of kæralaa in Sinhala. In some parts of the island, it is also called kottoruwa although it more often refers to barbets. This bird appears in a 4.50 rupee Sri Lankan postal stamp. It also appears in a 3.75 Taka postal stamp from Bangladesh.

Conservation status

Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2.
International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

www.birdforum.net

Sighted: (Date of first photo that I could use) 17 January 2016
Location: Ranthambhore, India

Among others I have used Peter Ericsson's web page Birds of Thailand These galleries contain 668 species of the Birds of Thailand and have been of a great help to identify some of the birds as the birds in Thailand and India are, well, many of them are the same.

I have had most help from my friend, the bird pal I met at Suan Rot Fai. Sending pictures of birds I have not been able to identify to him via Line. 3 minutes later he and he have managed to identify most of the birds I have had problems with. THANKS! Visit his web page m☥lever for his beautiful pictures.

And my new aid, maybe, and I say maybe the best aid. I brought my mobile phone as my SIM card have stopped working and I tried to get it to work again so I can use the internet. Thus I had my phone in my pocket on my first game drive in Jim Corbett National Park.

We saw a bird and I asked my Guide and the driver if they had a pen and a paper as I had forgot my pen and paper in my room. I remembered my LG phone and I recorded the name. And thus I will always bring my phone. Writing the name in the car and I have found more than once that it can be hard to read what I had wrote when I'm back in my room.

So now I always have my mobile in my pocket and it has been a great help. And from November 2018 I use eBird. Bird watching in U.A.E and Oman and my guide in Dubai recommended eBird and I have used the app since then and I note every bird I can identify in my eBird app.