Laced Woodpecker

The laced woodpecker is a medium-sized green woodpecker 27–33 cm long. Males have olive-green upperparts, a black tail, red crown and nape narrowly bordered black, a dark moustachial stripe and pale grey ear-coverts. The yellow breast grades into a greenish-white belly marked with olive chevrons. Females resemble males but replace the red crown with black, while juveniles are duller and have less sharply defined markings. Its barred-looking underparts give the species its English name (Bird Society of Singapore).

Its range extends from southern China through Indochina and the Thai-Malay Peninsula to Sumatra, Java and Bali. It occupies forest edge, secondary growth, mangroves, coastal scrub and wooded gardens, also entering bamboo and open wooded ground. Birds commonly forage lower than other regional woodpeckers and sometimes descend to the ground, using the bill to investigate trunks, branches and terrestrial substrates. Nesting takes place in an excavated tree cavity; observations in Singapore documented the male delivering food to chicks in early July (Bird Society of Singapore; Bird Ecology Study Group).