Adult males of the nominate subspecies have a pale yellow to whitish forehead, a bright red crown, and an orange-red nape and hindneck.

Their underparts are variable but usually buffish-gray to gray-buff with an olive or yellowish wash and a reddish to orange-red patch on the central belly.

Their bill is longish and blackish, their iris is red to brown, the bare skin around the eye gray-brown, and the legs gray.

[6] Subspecies M. r. subfusculus is slightly smaller than the nominate and has darker underparts whose breast and sides are deep gray-brown.

Another major portion is many types of insects and spiders, but fewer larvae of wood-boring beetles than many woodpeckers.

It feeds by probing, gleaning, and hammering for insects, and by reaching for fruit which it pierces or pecks open when too large to swallow whole.

The red-crowned woodpecker's typical call is "often wavering and protracted with an abrupt terminal note, e.g. 'churr, churr, krr-r-r-r'."

It has a large range and its estimated population of at least a half million mature individuals is believed to be stable.

[1] It is considered common in most of its range and abundant in Costa Rica and Panama; it occurs in several protected areas.