Endangered
Yellow-faced Flameback
Chrysocolaptes xanthocephalus
Yellow-faced Flameback is a bird in the family Picidae (order Piciformes) — Chrysocolaptes xanthocephalus, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
The yellow-faced flameback is a bird in the family Picidae. It is one of the most spectacular woodpeckers with its bright yellow head and crimson red back.
Range and habitat
It is found on the Philippine islands of Negros and Panay. It is found in moist lowland forests among them primary, secondary and even plantations and clearings provided there are still standing trees. It is the rarest woodpecker in the country and it is threatened by habitat loss.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
Not much is known about this species specific diet but based on other flameback species it is presumed to feed on large caterpillars, wood-boring larvaes, pupaes and ants. It is often seen foraging on larger trees and snags pecking and hammering the wood to find insects.
In crisis
It is extinct on Guimaras, Masbate, and Ticao (extinct). The highest known elevation for the yellow-faced flameback appears to be 900 m on Kanlaon, Negros and it appears to be a lowland forest specialist. The IUCN has assessed this bird as endangered with a population estimate of 1,100 – 5,500 mature individuals as of 2025.
Primary forests have been almost totally destroyed on Negros (where just 4% of any type of forest cover remained in 1988) and Panay (where 8% remained). Habitat degradation, through clearance for agriculture, timber and charcoal-burning, continues to pose a serious threat to remaining fragments.
Yellow-faced Flameback is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Yellow-faced Flameback, Wikidata item Q2967368. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
