White-browed Tit-Spinetail
Leptasthenura xenothorax
Small, active bird found locally in the southern Peruvian Andes. Brownish gray with a red cap, a white-streaked face, breast, and back, and a white eyebrow. Note its tiny, thumbtack-like bill and its fairly long, pointed tail. Forages in and near Polylepis patches, where it makes quick, short hops through dense bushy vegetation. Its song is a dry, rapid descending trill of chips.
Identification
The white-browed tit-spinetail is 16 to 18 cm (6.3 to 7.1 in) long and weighs about 13 g (0.46 oz). It is a small-bodied, long-tailed furnariid with a short bill. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a white supercilium with a narrow black border above it on an otherwise blackish and whitish streaked face. Their crown is bright rufous. Their upperparts are dull grayish brown, with narrow black-outlined white streaks that become more prominent on the lower back, then fainter on the rump, and become more obvious but still pale on the uppertail coverts. Their wings are dark fuscous with dull rufescent edges on the coverts and a pale tawny patch across the flight feathers. Their tail is mostly dark fuscous to black; the feathers have bare shafts on their tips giving a spiny appearance. Their throat and upper breast are whitish with coarse black mottling and the rest of their underparts are unmarked pale gray-brown. Their iris is brown to blackish gray, their bill black with a pinkish base to the mandible, and their legs and feet black.
Taxonomy
The white-browed tit-spinetail is monotypic.
- Scientific name
- Leptasthenura xenothorax
- Authority
- Chapman, 1921
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Furnariidae
- Genus
- Leptasthenura
Range and habitat
The white-browed tit-spinetail is found only in the Peruvian Andes. It is only known from a few locations in the departments of Cuzco and Apurímac. It primarily inhabits Polylepis woodlands but occasionally occurs in montane scrublands. It favors large areas of primary forest but will forage in smaller patches. In elevation it occurs between 3,700 and 4,550 m (12,100 and 14,900 ft) but is most common in the lower part of that range.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
Migration pattern: Resident species.
Conservation
Population trend: declining.
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
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