Pale-breasted Spinetail

Identification

The pale-breasted spinetail is 13 to 16 cm (5.1 to 6.3 in) long and weighs 9 to 17 g (0.32 to 0.60 oz). It is slightly smaller and has a shorter bill than most other members of genus Synallaxis. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies S. a. albescens have a pale brownish gray face with an even paler line through the eye. Their forehead is olive grayish brown and their crown dark rufous, often with slight mottling. Their back, rump and uppertail coverts are olive-brown. Their wing coverts are rufous and their flight feathers tawny-brownish. Their tail is olive-brown with a variable rufescent tinge on the outer feathers; it is graduated and the feathers have somewhat pointed tips. Their throat is whitish with black flecks in its lower part. Their breast is pale buffy gray, their belly a paler buffy gray, and their flanks and undertail coverts browner than the belly. Their iris is yellowish to light brown or brown, their maxilla black to dark gray, their mandible blackish to gray (sometimes with a dark tip to the gray), and their legs and feet yellowish brown to grayish olive or brownish yellow. Juveniles have a brownish gray crown, and compared to adults they have paler and more rufescent upperparts, an almost white throat, and paler underparts with an almost white center to the belly.<p>The other 10 subspecies of the pale-breasted spinetail differ from the nominate and each other thus:

Taxonomy

The pale-breasted spinetail's taxonomy is in flux. The International Ornithological Committee (IOC) recognizes these 11 subspecies:<p>The Clements taxonomy recognizes two more subspecies, S. a. hypoleuca (Ridgway, 1909) and S. a. griseonota (Todd, 1948). The IOC includes hypoleuca within latitabunda and griseonota within inaequalis. BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World does not recognize the two Clements entries nor trinitatis.<p>What is now the dark-breasted spinetail (S. albigularis) was previously treated by some authors as conspecific with the pale-breasted spinetail. Some now treat them as sister species.<p>This article follows the IOC 11-subspecies model.

Scientific name

Synallaxis albescens

Authority

Temminck, 1823

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Furnariidae

Genus

Synallaxis

Range and habitat

The subspecies of the pale-breasted spinetail are found thus:<p>The pale-breasted spinetail inhabits a wide variety of open grassy landscapes. These include savanna, cerrado, campo rupestre, shrub-steppe, brushy areas in woodlands, pastures, and the edges of secondary forest, marshes, and roadsides. In elevation it is generally found below 1,500 m (4,900 ft). In Central America it occurs below 1,250 m (4,100 ft) and in Colombia up to 1,800 m (5,900 ft).

Migration

Complete migrants

Behavior

Migration pattern: Complete migrants.

Conservation

Population trend: stable.

Population trend

stable