Indian Pygmy Woodpecker

The Indian pygmy woodpecker, or brown-capped pygmy woodpecker, is a very small brown-and-white woodpecker with pink-rimmed white eyes and a brown crown, edged with red in males. It lives in dry, moist and deciduous forest, mangroves, orchards, cultivated land and urban gardens up to about 2,300m, and eats small invertebrates from wood plus nectar and fruit (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is non-migratory and very active, often seen in pairs, small family groups or canopy mixed-species flocks, and is monogamous and territorial. Both sexes excavate a nest cavity 2 to 14m high in a dead branch, breeding from February to May. It occurs in India (except the north-east and the Thar Desert), Nepal and Sri Lanka, and was described by Vigors in 1832 (Wikipedia, general species account).