If you’ve got a sharp ear you can often find woodpeckers by the tapping sound they make. But they also have loud, simple and distinctive calls by which you can ID them. Some species even bang loudly on hollow, dead trees. They use the trees as drums to make a louder sound that carries further. Very cool!
Cardinal Woodpecker
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Cardinals can be quite noisy! They make these fast chattering or yikkering sounds like kirr-kirr-kirr… and yip-yip-yip. If you listen closely you’ll also hear its wings in this clip, plus soft tapping as its explores the branch for a nice fat grub. There’s an Olive Bushshrike, Black-backed Puffback and Cape Turtle Dove in the background of this clip. I recorded this outside the town of Vryheid in KwaZulu-Natal.
Bearded Woodpecker
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I recorded this in tall trees alongside the Crocodile River in Kruger National Park. To me it sounds like Bearded Woodpeckers say “quick-quick-quick-quick” but very fast. In between the calls you can hear White-bellied Sunbird, Yellow-breasted Apalis and Southern Black Tit. At the end of the clip a pair of Bearded Woodpeckers are “drumming” on a dead tree. This sound carries far over the veld!
Bennett’s Woodpecker
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My friend Anton Kruger, the Firefinch photographer, recorded this with his phone! Bennett’s Woodpeckers go whirrit-whirrit-whirrit… It sounds like excited giggling. When a group of them calls together, like here, it could be confused with a Green Woodhoopoe. These woodpeckers don’t make loud drumming sounds like some others. In the background you can hear the sad notes of an Emerald-spotted Wood Dove.
Golden-tailed Woodpecker
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You’ll get quite a fright if a Golden-tailed Woodpecker suddenly screams next to you! Their call is a loud and sudden yell, as if someone stepped on their toes. Weeyaa! They only make this sound at longer intervals, meaning there are long gaps between one call and the next. At the end of the clip I included sounds of a bird tapping on a trunk to get to a grub. If you hear such tapping sounds a woodie is nearby!
Knysna Woodpecker
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Knysna Woodies sound pretty similar to Golden-tailed: a loud, sudden yell. But in Knysna Woodpecker the call is much higher and sharper. The problem with these guys is they only call once every few minutes. This makes it difficult to locate them in the forest or thickets where the live. I shortened the intervals in this clip. I recorded this in thickets in Addo Elephant National Park in the Eastern Cape.
Olive Woodpecker
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In this recording you can clearly hear the woodpecker flying around. All woodpeckers’ wings make these bursts of loud frip-frip sounds when they fly. The main call of this forest woodpecker is that wee-rit, we-rit that you can hear at the end of the clip. But they also make various other excited, nervous-sounding sounds. I recorded the part in Magoebaskloof, and the second at Mount Sheba.
Ground Woodpecker
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Ground Woodies have two main calls. The first is a loud, hoarse pee-aargh! This reminds me of a pirate saying “arrrghh” like they always do in cartoons. In the last part of this clip a baby outside its nest tunnel in a road cutting is also making the pee-aargh call. He was calling to his parents while I was standing right next to him. Their second call is a chick-REE, chick-REE, chick-REE which echoes over the hills.
Red-throated Wryneck
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And here’s a bonus sound: the Red-throated Wryneck. The best way to find wrynecks is by their loud, squeaky calls: kweek, kweek, kweek… They usually make this while sitting patiently high up on a dead tree. A second bird arrives haflway through the clip, and you can hear some excited chattering. The second bird (the female?) has a quicker call. I recorded this at Kokstad in KwaZulu-Natal.
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Please be careful not to disturb birds too much if you’re playing their sounds.
All the sound and images on this page are copyright Faansie Peacock/Firefinch App.
To hear all the bird sounds, check out my Firefinch app on App Store/Google Play.
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