Red-shouldered Spinetail

Synallaxis hellmayri

Angry-looking bird with a long spiky tail and brown plumage contrasting with a black throat and a rusty shoulder patch. Occurs in arid, scrubby woodlands where normally forages on or close to the ground. The song is a repetition of a short, fast “quebéc.”

Identification

The red-shouldered spinetail is 18 to 19 cm (7.1 to 7.5 in) long and weighs 25 to 26 g (0.88 to 0.92 oz). The sexes are thought to have the same plumage. Adults have uniform fuscous brown face, crown, back, rump, and uppertail coverts. Their wing coverts are dull chestnut and their flight feathers brownish gray. Their tail is blackish; it is long and the feathers have blunt tips. Their chin and throat are black. The rest of their underparts are brownish gray with a buffier center to the belly. Their iris is orange to rufescent, their bill black to blackish brown, and their legs and feet gray. Juveniles have grayish wing coverts.

Taxonomy

The red-shouldered spinetail was long treated as the sole member of genus Gyalophylax but molecular phylogenetic studies show that Gyalophylax is embedded within Synallaxis. The red-shouldered spinetail is monotypic.

Scientific name
Synallaxis hellmayri
Authority
Reiser, 1905
Order
Passeriformes
Family
Furnariidae
Genus
Synallaxis

Range and habitat

The red-shouldered spinetail is found in eastern Brazil, in an area roughly bounded by Piauí, western Pernambuco, and extreme northern Minas Gerais. It inhabits arid scrubby woodland within the caatinga biome, and favors areas dense with terrestrial bromeliads. In elevation it ranges between 200 and 400 m (700 and 1,300 ft).

Migration
Resident species

Behavior

Migration pattern: Resident species.

Conservation

Population trend: declining.

Population trend
declining

Photos

Distribution

Bird Calls

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