Gila Woodpecker

My personal fun fact of the day. Common Names are just that. They can and do vary from country to country and even between different parts of the same country. Americans have added the words Common, European or Eurasian to a lot of species which in Europe just use a single name. Those who still refer to text books will come across this quite a lot. If you look at the RSPB site for British and European Birds you will find that those 3 words are not often used because there is no need. When you look at the names in other languages in Europe you will find the same. All the above, and there is a lot more, is why Scientific names are used, because they are international and generally fixed, although there are a few variations between different organisations. For Project Noah we accept just about anything, in any language, in the common Name field, after all, it is what the user knows it by. For accuracy we only use the scientific name for positive identification. For us a Flicker is a member of the Woodpecker family and that is what my American book says. A Flicker is a Woodpecker but a Woodpecker is not necessarily a Flicker. But I agree a Gila Woodpecker is not a Flicker because it does not have a black breast-band.

Keep an eye out for American Three-toed Woodpeckers out there.

Cool bird by the way!

This is actually a Gila Woodpecker.