THE image is of a female cardinal woodpecker, the male has a red hindcrown. Most common of all the arboreal woodpeckers found throughout South Africa, except for the high treeless mountains of Drakensberg and Lesotho. These woodpeckers like any woodland and forest edge, exotic plantations, orchards, parks, gardens and riverine bush where they feed on insects, especially beetle larvae. They are usually in pairs, sometimes solitary. They forage on branches and trunks of trees, bushes and also on reeds.
They land low in trees and work their way up towards the top. When disturbed they move to the off-side of the trunk or branch.
The cardinals drum fast with a quiet, mechanical rolled trrrr often followed by a rapid high pitched call kri – kri – kri – kri. Breeding is all months of the year except February and March. The nest is a hole excavated in a dead tree or branch. Usually two white eggs are laid, the incubation lasting 12 to 13 days and they are nestlings for about 27 days. The Xhosa name is Isinqolamthi and in Afrikaans die kardinaalspeg.
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