Arizona Woodpecker

Overview
Arizona Woodpecker: Small woodpecker with brown upperparts and heavily spotted and barred white underparts. The forehead and crown are brown, nape patch is red, and throat is white. Face is white with a large, brown cheek patch, creating a white eyebrow and line from the bill to neck.

Range and Habitat
Arizona Woodpecker: Occurs in the mountains of extreme southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. Range extends southward into Mexico through Sierra Madre Occidental of Sonora, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Durango, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Zacatecas, and Michoaca. Frequents open oak or pine-oak woodlands or sycamores in canyons.

The Arizona Woodpecker was not a recognized species prior to 2000. In 2000, the Arizona Woodpecker received an evaluation of Lower Risk. Today, the Arizona Woodpecker has a global range of around 330,000 square kilometers and is found in the United States and Mexico. The population of this bird is believed to be as many as half a million individual birds. As there have not been any serious declines in the population of the Arizona Woodpecker over the last ten years, it currently has an evaluation of Least Concern.

INTERESTING FACTS
The Arizona Woodpecker is known in older field guides as a subspecies of Strickland's Woodpecker. Of the typical woodpeckers of the U.S. and Canada, the Arizona Woodpecker is the only species that is brown and white and not black and white. They are one of the primary cavity nesters in their area, and are responsible for providing nest sites for a large number of additional species. A group of woodpeckers has many collective nouns, including a "descent", "drumming", and "gatling" of woodpeckers.