Ruddy Foliage-gleaner

Identification

The ruddy foliage-gleaner is 17 to 21.5 cm (6.7 to 8.5 in) long, and most subspecies weigh between 39 and 52 g (1.4 and 1.8 oz). (Subspecies obscurus weighs 23 to 35 g (0.81 to 1.2 oz).) The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies C. r. rubiginosus have a dark reddish brown face with slightly paler lores, faint brighter markings on the ear coverts, and a ring of bare blue skin around the eye. Their crown is very dark brown with a reddish tone and slightly darker scallop markings. Their back is a slightly paler dark reddish brown than the crown, their rump a slightly slightly paler dark brown than the back, and their uppertail coverts dark brown with reddish brown tips. Their wings and tail are also dark reddish brown. Their throat is dark rufous with rufescent brown feather tips and blends to the reddish brown breast that has faint paler spots along the feather shafts. Their belly is rufescent brown, their sides and flanks a darker brown, and their undertail coverts reddish brown. Their iris is dark brown to grayish brown, their maxilla black to gray, their mandible pinkish gray to dusky horn, and their legs and feet brown to grayish olive. Juveniles have a paler ochraceous throat and breast than adults.<p>The other subspecies of the ruddy foliage-gleaner differ from the nominate and each other thus:

Taxonomy

The ruddy foliage-gleaner was previously placed in genus Automolus but genetic data place it firmly in Clibanornis. Beyond that change, the species' taxonomy is unsettled. The International Ornithological Committee (IOC) and BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) assign it these 13 subspecies:<p>The Clements taxonomy adds two more subspecies, C. r. umbrinus (Salvin &amp; Godman, 1891) and C. r. moderatus (Zimmer, 1935). The IOC and HBW include the first in veraepacis and the second in watkinsi.<p>There are distinct plumage and vocal variations among the subspecies of the ruddy foliage-gleaner, suggesting that more than one species is involved. Subspecies nigricauda and saturatus were together treated as a species early in the twentieth century, and obscurus has been proposed as a separate species. What is now the Santa Marta foliage-gleaner (C. rufipectus) was split from the ruddy foliage-gleaner following a 2008 publication.<p>This article follows the 13-subspecies model.

Scientific name

Clibanornis rubiginosus

Authority

(Sclater, PL, 1857)

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Furnariidae

Genus

Clibanornis

Range and habitat

The ruddy foliage-gleaner has a highly disjunct distribution. Its subspecies are found thus:<p>The ruddy foliage-gleaner's habitat varies geographically. In Mexico and Central America it inhabits humid evergreen, pine-evergreen, and pine-oak forests, cloudforest, and coffee plantations, mainly between 500 and 2,500 m (1,600 and 8,200 ft) of elevation. In the Andes it inhabits lowland, foothill, and lower montane evergreen forest up to about 1,500 m (4,900 ft). In the Guianas and northern Brazil it inhabits lowland tropical forest from near sea level to about 1,300 m (4,300 ft). It tends to stay in the forest understory and seems to have affinity for the bottoms of ravines with dense vegetation.

Migration

Resident species

Behavior

The ruddy foliage-gleaner is a year-round resident in most of its range though some populations in Mexico might make elevational changes with the seasons.<p>The ruddy foliage-gleaner feeds on a variety of arthropods and also small vertebrates like frogs. It usually forages in pairs and rarely joins mixed-species feeding flocks. It mostly forages in the undergrowth though sometimes as high as the forest's mid-storey. It usually gleans its prey from dead leaves, pecks it from decaying branches, and sometimes flips around leaf litter on the ground.<p>The ruddy foliage-gleaner's breeding season or seasons have not been fully defined but are known to vary geographically. The species is monogamous and pairs remain together year-round. The known nests were cups of soft fibers in a chamber at the end of a tunnel in an earthen bank. The clutch size is normally two eggs and the female incubates at night. Nothing else is known about the species' breeding biology.<p>The ruddy foliage-gleaner's vocalizations vary among the subspecies. In Mexico what is thought to be its song is "a disyllabic, nasal mewing yeh'nk yeh'nk' or yeh-enk' yeh-enk' ". There its calls are "a hard dry chatter and a slowly repeated chak". In northern Central America its call is "a burry, scratchy Churee!-Churee!-Churee!". It has a variety of calls in Costa Rica and Panama, rendered as "ka-kweek", "ta-whoip", "a-whick", "eeaah", and "kaayr, kaayr". In Colombia its call is a repeated "antbird-like sneering croak". In the Andes of Ecuador it makes as persistent call, a "querulous and nasal, upslurred 'kweeeeahhhh' ". In the Guianas and northern Brazil its call is "a sharp, emphatic 'chuck-kwihhh' " whose second note rises; it is also described as a "2-noted 'tutwuuh' (2nd note higher)".

Conservation

Population trend

declining