Streaked Tuftedcheek

Identification

The streaked tuftedcheek is 20 to 22 cm (7.9 to 8.7 in) long and weighs 37 to 62 g (1.3 to 2.2 oz). It is a rather large and strongly patterned ovenbird. The sexes' plumages are alike but the female of most subspecies has a significantly longer bill than the male. The species' most distinctive feature is its namesake tuft of almost pure white feathers that flare on the side of the neck. Adults of the nominate subspecies P. b. boissonneautii have a buff-whitish supercilium, blackish brown lores and ear coverts, and white cheeks. Their crown is blackish brown with many thin buff streaks, their hindneck and upper back similar with wider pale buff streaks, and the rest of their back rufescent brown. Their rump and uppertail coverts are bright chestnut rufous and their tail bright rufous. Their wings are blackish brown with pale rufous edges and tips on the coverts. Their secondaries have rufous edges at their base and their tertials are mostly rufous. Their throat is white, their breast a pale golden buff with dark brown feather edges that give a scaly look, and the rest of their underparts unmarked rufous that darkens to the undertail coverts. Their iris is brown to dark brown, their maxilla black, their mandible grayish white to silvery with a blackish upper third, and their legs and feet gray to slate. Juveniles have a much shorter bill than adults, an unmarked black crown, dense black scallop markings on the breast, and rich rufous belly and flanks.<p>The other subspecies of the streaked tuftedcheek differ from the nominate and each other thus:

Taxonomy

According to the International Ornithological Committee (IOC) and BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World, the streaked tuftedcheek has these eight subspecies:<p>HBW spells the species' specific epithet boissonneauii (without a "t"), as that is how its namesake Auguste Boissonneau spelled his name. Other taxonomic systems retain the "t", though the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society (AOS) is seeking a proposal to correct the spelling.<p>The Clements taxonomy adds two more subspecies, P. b. orientalis (Zimmer, JT, 1935) and P. b. pallidus (Zimmer, JT, 1935). The IOC and HBW include orientalis in oberholseri and pallidus in medianus.<p>What are now the buffy tuftedcheek (P. lawrencii) and the Pacific tuftedcheek (P. johnsoni) were previously considered subspecies of the streaked tuftedcheek. Though some authors had treated the three of them as separate species in the early twentieth century, major taxonomic systems did not begin doing so until the mid-2010s. The AOS and the Clements taxonomy were the last; they implemented the split in 2022.<p>This article follows the IOC/HBW eight-subspecies model.

Scientific name

Pseudocolaptes boissonneautii

Authority

(Lafresnaye, 1840)

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Furnariidae

Genus

Pseudocolaptes

Range and habitat

The subspecies of the streaked tuftedcheek are found thus:<p>The streaked tuftedcheek inhabits the interior and edges of humid montane evergreen forest and elfin forest. In elevation it mostly ranges from 1,700 to 3,200 m (5,600 to 10,500 ft) but is also found as low as 1,450 m (4,800 ft) and as high as 3,500 m (11,500 ft).

Migration

Resident species

Behavior

Migration pattern: Resident species.

Conservation

Population trend: stable.

Population trend

stable