White-chested Puffbird
Malacoptila fusca
Brown-and-white streaked bird with a large head and yellowish bill; white crescent on chest is helpful for identification but can be difficult to see. Inhabits lower and middle levels of tall rainforest, where it is easily overlooked as it sits motionless for long periods before darting to tree trunks, foliage, or ground for large insect and small vertebrate prey. Not common and usually encountered alone. Song is a long, very rapid series of soft piping notes, slowly falling in pitch and only audible at close range; calls include a high, thin, descending whistle, repeated at long intervals. Unlikely to be confused in most of range; distinguished from others in genus by streaked back.
Identification
The white-chested puffbird is about 18 cm (7.1 in) long and weighs about 44 g (1.6 oz). The head, upperparts, and wing coverts are dark brown, with the crown being blackish brown. Pale shafts to the feathers give a streaked appearance. The tail is warm brown. It has a whitish "whisker" and chin and a thin white crescent across the upper breast. The underparts are dirty white or buff with brown streaks and mottling. The bill is yellow-orange with a black tip, the eye reddish brown, yellow, or red, and the legs and feet yellow olive to pale olive.<p>The song is "a long, descending musical trill: tree'e'e'e'e'e'e'e'e'ew." Its calls include "a descending, high, mewing whistle peeww."
Taxonomy
The white-chested puffbird was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the other puffbirds in the genus Bucco and coined the binomial name Bucco fuscus. The specific epithet is Latin meaning "brown" or "dusky". Gmelin based his description on the "white-breasted barbet" that had been described in 1782 by the English ornithologist John Latham from a specimen that had been collected in Cayenne, French Guiana. The white-chested puffbird is now one of seven species placed in the genus Malacoptila that was introduced by George Gray in 1841.<p>The white-chested puffbird and the semicollared puffbird (Malacoptila semicincta) were considered to be conspecific by James Peters in 1958 but they are now treated as a superspecies. The white-chested puffbird is generally considered to be monotypic, though a subspecies M. f. venezuelae was proposed in 1947.
- Scientific name
- Malacoptila fusca
- Authority
- (Gmelin, JF, 1788)
- Order
- Piciformes
- Family
- Bucconidae
- Genus
- Malacoptila
Range and habitat
The white-chested puffbird is found in two large disjunct areas. One is from eastern Colombia and southwestern Venezuela south through eastern Ecuador and central Peru as far as the valley of the Apurímac River. The other is in the lower Amazon Basin from the Guianas east and south into Brazil's Amazonas and Pará states. It inhabits the understory of tropical evergreen forest, both terra firme and várzea. It is a bird of the lowlands. In elevation it ranges up to 200 m (660 ft) in Venezuela, 600 m (2,000 ft) in Colombia, 900 m (3,000 ft) in Ecuador (though locally to 1,200 m (3,900 ft)), and 1,500 m (4,900 ft) in Peru.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The white-chested puffbird hunts from a perch several meters above the ground, remaining motionless for long periods before sallying to capture prey on the ground or from vegetation. It then usually flies to a different perch. It sometimes follows army ant swarms. Its diet has not been described in detail, but it is probably mostly insects with some small invertebrates.<p>Essentially nothing is known about the white-chested puffbird's breeding phenology. It is thought to nest in a burrow in the ground as does its close relative the white-whiskered puffbird (M. panamensis).
Conservation
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
Eastern Spot-billed Duck
Anas zonorhyncha
Common large duck of lakes, ponds, wet fields, and estuaries. Dark brown overall, with a pale head marked by a whitish eyebrow and two black stripes on the face. Namesake yellow bill spot is visible even from a good distance. White underwings contrast strongly with dark body in flight. Highly adaptable and quite tame, foraging in city parks and small ponds close to human settlements.
Philippine Green-Pigeon
Treron axillaris
A medium-sized pigeon of lowland and foothill forest canopy, with green underparts, head, and rump, a gray crown, yellow wingbars and edges to the flight feathers, a whitish belly, and white under the base of the tail. Note the whitish bill with a reddish base and the blue eyes. Male has a maroon shoulder and back, where the female is green. Similar to Thick-billed Green-Pigeon, but Philippine has a thinner bill and lacks the green skin around the eye. Female resembles female Pink-necked Green-Pigeon, but that species has yellow marks only on the edge of the wing. Voice is typical of green-pigeons, including a rising-and-falling out-of-tune whistled song.
Tongan Megapode
Megapodius pritchardii
A plump, mostly ground-dwelling bird with long yellowish legs and a dark gray body with slightly browner wash on the wings and back. Head mostly dark gray, with bright orange beak and whitish crest. Good views may show blood-red bare skin around the eye and throat. Found in mature woodland with open understory. Nests on crater lake islands. Resident, with no record of vagrancy. Very vocal, most frequently heard in groups giving chorus of loud piping whistles and shrill cries. Calls are usually a staccato one-note whistle. Unmistakable, as it is the only scrubfowl in its range.
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