Henna-hooded Foliage-gleaner

Clibanornis erythrocephalus

Attractive foliage-gleaner found in dry and semi-humid forest in western Ecuador and northwestern Peru. Plumage is brown with an orange to reddish hood and chestnut wings and tail. Usually stays quite low and sometimes hunts for food on the ground. It stays in dense cover, and is easier to see in the dry season when many trees and bushes lose their leaves. Song is a short burst of odd, nasal notes repeated every several seconds. Threatened by habitat loss.

Identification

The henna-hooded foliage-gleaner is about 21 cm (8.3 in) long and weighs about 48 g (1.7 oz). It is a large, boldly-patterned foliage-gleaner with a thick, slightly decurved, bill. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a unique henna (orange-rufous) head, neck, wings, and tail. Their back is brownish olive. Their underparts are mostly pale brownish gray with a rufous crissum. Their iris is variable from yellow to gray-brown, their maxilla gray or blackish gray, their mandible whitish or horn with a dusky end, and their legs and feet olive or gray. Subspecies C. e. palamblae is a paler rufous where the nominate is henna, and has a grayer (less brownish) back and a paler buff breast and belly.

Taxonomy

The henna-hooded foliage-gleaner has previously been placed in genera Automolus and Hypocryptus but genetic data place it firmly in Clibanornis. It has two subspecies, the nominate C. e. erythrocephalus (Chapman, 1919) and C. e. palamblae (Zimmer, JT, 1935).

Scientific name
Clibanornis erythrocephalus
Authority
(Chapman, 1919)
Order
Passeriformes
Family
Furnariidae
Genus
Clibanornis

Range and habitat

The nominate subspecies of the henna-hooded foliage-gleaner has a disjunct distribution. One population is found in west-central Ecuador's Manabí and Guayas provinces. The other is from far southern Guayas and Auzuay provinces south through El Oro and Loja into Peru's extreme northwestern Department of Tumbes. Subspecies C. e. palamblae is found further south, in the Peruvian departments of Piura and Lambayeque. The species inhabits deciduous and semihumid forests and woodlands, mostly on the lower slopes of the west side of the Andes. It favors areas with many species of Malvaceae, the mallow family. In Ecuador it mainly occurs between elevations of 400 and 1,800 m (1,300 and 5,900 ft) and in Peru between 400 and 1,500 m (1,300 and 4,900 ft).

Migration
Resident species

Behavior

Migration pattern: Resident species.

Conservation

Population trend: declining.

Population trend
declining

Photos

Distribution

Bird Calls

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