Mottled Piculet
Picumnus nebulosus
Tiny woodpecker with a warm buffy-brown back and collar, and buffy belly with dark streaks. Males have a red forehead. Occurs in lowland humid forest and Araucaria forests with dense understory, including bamboo forests. There it forages at middle levels, singly or with mixed-species flocks.
Identification
The mottled piculet is 10 to 11 cm (3.9 to 4.3 in) long and weighs 11 to 12 g (0.39 to 0.42 oz). Adult males have a black cap and nape with a red patch on the forehead and white spots on the rest of it. Their face is mostly dark olive-brown with some white. Their hindneck and upperparts are warm olive-brown with a buff or rusty tinge on the back. Their flight feathers are dark brown to blackish with wide pale edges on the secondaries and tertials. Their tail is black; the innermost pair of feathers have mostly white inner webs and the outer three pairs have a white streak on the outer web. Their chin and throat are white with thin black bars. Their breast is buffish brown, sometimes with dark streaks. Their belly is pale buff and their flanks a richer buff with wide blackish streaks. Their iris is brown, the orbital ring grayish, the beak black with a gray base to the mandible, and the legs gray. Adult females are identical but with white spots throughout the cap and no red. Juveniles are duller than adults and have an dull brown crown with pale buffish streaks.
Taxonomy
The mottled piculet is monotypic. The population in southeastern Brazil was treated by some authors as a separate species P. iheringi but it is now known to be synonymous with P. nebulosus.
- Scientific name
- Picumnus nebulosus
- Authority
- Sundevall, 1866
- Order
- Piciformes
- Family
- Picidae
- Genus
- Picumnus
Range and habitat
The mottled piculet has an almost unique range. It is found from southeastern Brazil's Paraná state south through eastern Uruguay and into Argentina's Misiones and Corrientes provinces. Its typical habitat is lowland evergreen Atlantic forest and Araucaria forest, but it also occurs in gallery forest, bamboo thickets, scrubland, and wooded savannah. In elevation it mostly occurs up to 1,100 m (3,600 ft) but has been found as high as 1,400 m (4,600 ft).
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The mottled piculet is mostly sedentary but is thought to also make some elevational movements.<p>The mottled piculet forages in dense vegetation of the understory and also in trees up to about 8 m (26 ft) above the ground. It takes insect larvae from thin branches, vines, and bamboo stems. It usually forages alone but will join mixed species foraging flocks.<p>The mottled piculet's breeding season is from October to December. Nothing else is known about its breeding biology.<p>The mottled piculet's vocalisations are limited to a repetitive "seep" or "cheep", sometimes linked into a brief trill, and an occasional humming sound. The alarm call is a shrill cricket-like whistling sound. It also drums, particularly on bamboo, in an irregular pattern of two to four rapid strikes.
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
Bradfield's Hornbill
Lophoceros bradfieldi
Brown hornbill with a white belly and an orange bill. The white corners of the tail are conspicuous in flight. Note the black mask around the eye. Found in woodland, especially those dominated by mopane and Zambezi teak. Usually solitary or in pairs, occasionally small flocks. Call is a long, insistent series of piping notes. Fairly similar to Monteiro’s Hornbill, but lacks white in the wings, and has small white corners to the tail rather than completely white outer tail feathers. Also similar to Crowned Hornbill, but separated by paler overall coloration, paler orange bill without a casque, and lack of white streaks on the head.
Timor Blue Flycatcher
Eumyias hyacinthinus
A distinctive chunky, upright flycatcher. Male is blue-and-orange with an entirely blue head, throat, and upperparts and a contrasting orange underside from the chest down. Female is also distinctive, with a blue tail, brown upperparts, and an entirely pale orange underside, including the throat. Inconspicuous; single birds inhabit the understory of forest, wooded areas, and patches of trees in the lowlands and foothills. Confined to the eastern Lesser Sundas. Song is a short, rapid series of jumbled rising and falling notes of medium pitch.
Sao Tome White-eye
Zosterops feae
A small, active, mostly dull olive-green and gray warbler-like bird with a yellowish throat and a white eye-ring that is obvious with a good view. Endemic to São Tomé, where small groups regularly join mixed-species flocks. A fairly common resident in the canopy and middle levels of primary and secondary forest and tall trees in woodland, most common between 400 and 1600 meters of elevation. Calls include a dry, reedy trilling with some musical notes interspersed. Sao Tome White-eye may join the same flocks as Black-capped Speirops, which is slightly larger and has a dark cap.
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