Band-tailed Earthcreeper

Identification

The band-tailed earthcreeper is 16 to 17 cm (6.3 to 6.7 in) long and weighs 28 to 34 g (0.99 to 1.2 oz). It is a smallish earthcreeper whose medium-length bill is thin and straight. The sexes are alike. Adults have a white supercilium, a dark stripe behind the eye, and rufescent cheeks. Their crown and upperparts are plain dull gray-brown. Their tail's central pair of feathers are fuscous blackish with dull gray-brown bases and the rest have a sharp line between dark rufous bases and black ends. Their wings are dull gray-brown. Their throat is whitish with grayer edges, their breast and belly pale dull gray-brown with paler streaks on the breast and flanks, and their undertail coverts whitish. Their iris is dark brown, their bill black or blackish brown with a pale gray or horn base to the mandible, and their legs and feet blackish brown or blackish. Juveniles have pale feather edges on their forehead and much fainter streaking on their underparts than adults.

Taxonomy

The band-tailed earthcreeper was originally described as Eremobius phoenicurus. In the early 1900s at least one publication put it in genus Enicornis. Since the early 2000s has been in its present genus.<p>The band-tailed earthcreeper is monotypic.

Scientific name

Ochetorhynchus phoenicurus

Authority

(Gould, 1839)

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Furnariidae

Genus

Ochetorhynchus

Range and habitat

The band-tailed earthcreeper is found in southwestern Argentina between Neuquén and Santa Cruz provinces and in the northeastern part of far southern Chile's Magallanes Region. It inhabits arid scrublands and temperate grasslands. It favors thinly vegetated plains, plateaus, and slopes. In elevation it ranges from near sea level to 1,200 m (3,900 ft).

Migration

Resident species

Behavior

Migration pattern: Resident species.

Conservation

Population trend: declining.

Population trend

declining