Woodpeckers (Picidae)

White-winged Woodpecker (Dendrocopos leucopterus) - HBW 7, p. 486

French: Pic à ailes blanches German: Weißflügelspecht Spanish: Pico Aliblanco
Other common names: White-winged Pied/White-winged Spotted Woodpecker

Taxonomy: Picus (Dendrocopus) [sic] leucopterus Salvadori, 1870, Yarkand, Kashgaria, in extreme west China.
Genus sometimes merged into Picoides. Forms a superspecies with D. major, D. syriacus, D. assimilis and D. himalayensis; has hybridized very occasionally with first of those. Birds of the Turkestan uplands, described as race leptorhynchus, tend to be less white, but difference minor and not constant, and racial separation regarded as unwarranted; named races albipennis (SE Turkmenia), jaxartensis (lower R Syr Darya) and korejevi (SW Alatau Mts) likewise insufficiently differentiated. Monotypic.

Distribution: W shore of Aral Sea E to S Kazakhstan, N Kyrgyzstan (N to S tip of L Balkhash) and W China (N Xinjiang to Karamay and Lop Nur), and S to SW Turkmenia (possibly also extreme NE Iran) and NE Afghanistan in W and Chinese Turkestan S to edge of Kunlun Shan in E.