Gray-crowned Woodpecker

The grey-crowned woodpecker is 19.5 to 21 cm (7.7 to 8.3 in) long and weighs about 65 g (2.3 oz). Males and females have the same plumage except on their heads. Adult males have a light gray crown and nape. They are pale brownish buff on their lores and sides of the head, sometimes with indistinct grayish bars. They have a wide red stripe below the brownish buff and a dull white chin and upper throat; the last has dull grayish bars. Adult females have no red on their head. Both sexes have mostly pale olive to olive green upperparts; their rump and uppertail coverts are barred with pale yellow or yellowish white. Their wings are a brighter olive green than the back. Their tail is pale yellowish olive green with dusky tips on the central feathers and sometimes darker bars or spots on the outer ones. Their underparts are yellowish white or pale yellowish with irregular olive bars. Their bill is dark gray, their iris brown, and the legs gray. Juveniles resemble adult females with less distinct barring on the underparts; the male's red facial stripe is mixed with gray.

The grey-crowned woodpecker is found in western Mexico from southern Sonora and Chihuahua to southern Oaxaca. It inhabits the interior and edges of semi-humid and humid forest, and is also found locally in pine-oak forest. In elevation it ranges from near sea level to 2,400 m (7,900 ft).

The grey-crowned woodpecker forages at all levels from the ground to the forest canopy. Its diet is not known in detail but does include termites, other invertebrates, and berries.