Creamy-crested Spinetail
Cranioleuca albicapilla
Small, long-tailed bird with a pale head. Light brown, with reddish tail and shoulder patch and pale crown and throat. Found in semi-humid shrubby areas at high elevations, especially along streams, where it forages singly or in pairs low in dense vegetation. Listen for its squeaky song, a choppy, accelerating series of high notes.
Identification
The creamy-crested spinetail is 16 to 17 cm (6.3 to 6.7 in) long and weighs 18 to 24 g (0.63 to 0.85 oz). It is a large member of genus Cranioleuca and has a distinctive head pattern. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a narrow whitish supercilium and gray-brown lores on an otherwise buffy face with some streaking. Their crown and crest are creamy-white. Their back is olivaceous gray that is browner at the rump. Their wing coverts are dark rufous and their flight feathers dull brown. Their tail is rufous; it is graduated and the feathers have pointed tips. Their throat and belly are pale gray and their breast, flanks, and undertail coverts are darker gray. Their iris is chestnut to gray, their bill gray to pinkish, and their legs and feet olive-yellow to greenish yellow. Juveniles have a pale yellowish forehead and throat, a sooty nape and upper belly, and a strong ochraceous wash on their underparts. Compared to the nominate, subspecies C. a. albigula has a more ochraceous crown, a browner back, a more richly colored rump, and more reddish uppertail coverts. Their throat is white and their underparts have a strong buff wash. The two subspecies intergrade where their ranges meet.
Taxonomy
The creamy-crested spinetail has two subspecies, the nominate C. a. albicapilla (Cabanis, 1873) and C. a. albigula (Zimmer, JT, 1924).
- Scientific name
- Cranioleuca albicapilla
- Authority
- (Cabanis, 1873)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Furnariidae
- Genus
- Cranioleuca
Range and habitat
Subspecies C. a. albigula of the creamy-crested spinetail is the more northerly of the two. It is found in the Andes of central Peru from the Department of Junín south to Ayacucho and Apurímac departments. The nominate subspecies is found in the Andes of southern Peru in the departments of Cuzco, Ayacucho, and Apurímac. The species inhabits semi-humid and humid montane forest and woodlands. It also occurs in cloudforest and Polylepis woodlands. In elevation it mostly ranges between 2,400 and 3,650 m (7,900 and 12,000 ft) but is found as high as 4,240 m (13,900 ft).
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
Migration pattern: Resident species.
Conservation
Population trend: stable.
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
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Bornean Forktail
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Prionops plumatus
A sociable, cartoon-like, black-and-white helmetshrike with a grayish crest and a piercing yellow eye and eye-wattle. Groups fly with a labored flight action, showing a conspicuous pied pattern. Close-knit parties of 5 to 10 birds forage restlessly in mixed- or single-species flocks in broadleaf woodland and arid savanna, looking for insects at middle and lower levels. Groups give strange ratcheting and ringing calls, including clicks and whistles.
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