Sickle-winged Guan
Chamaepetes goudotii
Large chickenlike bird, but small for a guan. Distinctive: mostly brown with contrasting rufous belly and bright blue facial skin around red eye. Found in subtropical zones on both slopes of Andes, from Colombia to Bolivia. Rather unobtrusive and quiet; can be difficult to spot as it perches in the middle and upper levels of the forest. Often in pairs or small groups.
Identification
The sickle-winged guan is 50 to 65 cm (1.64 to 2.13 ft) long and weighs 550 to 800 g (1.21 to 1.76 lb). The subspecies differ in size; C. g. tschudii and C. g. rufiventris are the largest. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a brown head and neck, dark upperparts, bright chestnut belly, pale blue facial skin, and red eyes. Juveniles are similar but duller. C. g. sanctaemarthae's upper breast, throat, and cheeks are redder than the nominate's and its vent area a darker red. C. g. fagani's head and upperparts are much darker than those of the nominate and sanctaemarthae and its underparts are chestnut. C. g. tschudii is similar to fagani but has more olive-brown upperparts and the chestnut of the underparts is lighter. C. g. rufiventris has gray edges on its neck feathers that give a scaly appearance; it is also a paler olive above and less chestnut on the underparts than tschudii.
Taxonomy
The sickle-winged guan shares the genus Chamaepetes with the black guan (C. unicolor) of southern Central America and may form a superspecies with it. It has the five subspecies listed in the box to the right.
- Scientific name
- Chamaepetes goudotii
- Authority
- (Lesson, RP, 1828)
- Order
- Galliformes
- Family
- Cracidae
- Genus
- Chamaepetes
Range and habitat
The subspecies of sickle-winged guan are distributed thus:<p>The sickle-winged guan inhabits humid and wet forest, preferring tall forest but also found at edges and in secondary forest. The sickle-winged guan is generally a bird of middle elevations. It reaches as high as 3,000 m (9,800 ft) in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta but elsewhere in Colombia is mostly between 1,100 and 2,500 m (3,600 and 8,200 ft). In Peru it is typically found between 1,450 and 2,500 m (4,760 and 8,200 ft). Its Bolivian populations are at the highest elevations, 2,500 to 3,500 m (8,200 to 11,500 ft).
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The sickle-winged guan primarily forages in fruiting trees, often as high as 13 m (43 ft) above ground. Pairs forage together or as part of groups of up to eight birds, usually around dawn and dusk. It mostly feeds on small fruits but also adds flowers, leaves, and invertebrates for as much as 15% of its diet. In some areas it frequents feeding stations to eat bananas.<p>The sickle-winged guan's breeding season in the Colombian Andes spans from January to June and may extend beyond that in other areas. The nest is a platform of thin branches, moss, and green and dead vegetation, usually placed in a tree fork or on a bromeliad. The clutch size is two or three eggs.<p>The fagini subspecies of sickle-winged guan gives an " extremely thin, high-pitched...whistle" and a "keeeeeee-uk!" alarm call. Its wing-whirring display is usually given at dawn and dusk as it flies back and forth between two trees.
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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