Brown-rumped Foliage-gleaner
Automolus melanopezus
Subtly-patterned foliage-gleaner. Warm dark brown overall, lighter below, with an orange-brown throat patch, and red eye. Found mostly in bamboo forests, as well as occasionally in areas of dense understory within mature rainforest, like vine tangles and in vegetation in upland ravines. Listen for its unique song, consisting of two or three liquid “wheep” notes followed by a chuckling trill accelerating into a rapid “trrrr.”
Identification
The brown-rumped foliage-gleaner is 16 to 19 cm (6.3 to 7.5 in) long and weighs 27 to 32 g (0.95 to 1.1 oz). It is one of the smaller members of its genus and has a shortish and heavy bill. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a mostly rich dark brown face with a few buff streaks on the ear coverts, grizzled brownish and grayish lores, and an ochraceous malar area. Their crown is rich brown with some faint pale spots on the forehead. Their back and rump are rich brown that blends to chestnut-tinged brown uppertail coverts. Their wing has dull ochraceous at the bend, dark reddish brown coverts, and somewhat more rufescent flight feathers. Their tail is dull reddish brown. Their throat is dull tawny-buff that becomes light brown on the breast and belly. Their sides and flanks are darker brown and their undertail coverts pale rufescent brown. Their iris is dark red to orange, their maxilla dark grayish to blackish, their mandible pale gray to grayish brown, and their legs and feet olive-gray to greenish gray. Juveniles have thin dark edges on their crown feathers and a paler throat and darker and browner underparts than adults.
Taxonomy
The brown-rumped foliage-gleaner and the chestnut-crowned foliage-gleaner (A. rufipileatus) are sister species. The brown-rumped is monotypic.
- Scientific name
- Automolus melanopezus
- Authority
- (Sclater, PL, 1858)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Furnariidae
- Genus
- Automolus
Range and habitat
The brown-rumped foliage-gleaner has a disjunct distribution in the western Amazon Basin. One population is found around where southwestern Colombia, eastern Ecuador, and northern Peru meet. The other is found in a band in southeastern Peru, northern Bolivia, and west-central Brazil. Despite this separation, the populations are essentially phenotypically identical. The species inhabits tropical evergreen forest, usually on floodplains (both várzea and terra firme), and almost always in or near thickets of Guadua bamboo. In elevation it mostly ranges between 300 and 500 m (1,000 and 1,600 ft) and locally occurs up to 600 m (2,000 ft).
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
Migration pattern: Resident species.
Conservation
Population trend: declining.
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
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Long known to ornithologists as something different (and informally called “Millpo Tapaculo”), this bird was finally described as a new species in 2020. It inhabits grassy, rock-strewn areas above tree line at high elevations in the eastern Andes of central Peru. Plumage is mainly gray with tan rear parts that are faintly barred, and it sometimes shows a faint, whitish eyebrow; female is browner than male. Similar in appearance to several other tapaculos, and best identified by range and voice. Song, often given from atop a rock, is a seemingly endless series of raspy chip notes.
Chestnut-headed Oropendola
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Rather large, dark, yellow-tailed bird of humid evergreen forest and edge in tropical lowlands. Where present, colonies of large pendulous nests adorn tall trees. Often in flocks, usually in forest canopy at fruiting trees. Male is much larger than female, but sexes look similar, with a dark, rich brown head and body, blackish upperparts, pale yellowish bill, and bold yellow tail sides. Flight much quicker than larger Montezuma Oropendola, with deep, rather swooping wingbeats that produce a rushing sound.
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