Semicollared Puffbird
Malacoptila semicincta
Chunky, large-headed bird of rainforest understory. Brown with extensive white streaking, and a band of reddish brown across the back of the neck. Usually sits motionless in the understory, sometimes moving with mixed species flocks with birds like ant-tanagers and antwrens, or at army ant swarms. Rarely gives its song, a high-pitched trill, but more frequently gives a weak whistled “weew” that sounds like a soft Tawny-crowned Greenlet and often is overlooked.
Identification
The semicollared puffbird is about 18 cm (7.1 in) long and weighs about 44 g (1.6 oz). The head and upperparts are blackish brown; pale shafts to the feathers give a streaked appearance. Its tail is brown. It has a whitish "whisker" and chin and a thin white crescent across the upper breast. The back of the neck has a rufous "collar". The underparts are whitish with blackish streaks on the lower breast and flanks. The bill is mostly black above and yellow-orange below, the eye dark red with a white ring around it, and the feet pale greenish pink.
Taxonomy
The semicollared puffbird and the white-chested puffbird (M. fusca) were for a time considered conspecific but are now treated as a superspecies. It is monotypic.
- Scientific name
- Malacoptila semicincta
- Authority
- Todd, 1925
- Order
- Piciformes
- Family
- Bucconidae
- Genus
- Malacoptila
Range and habitat
The semicollared puffbird is found in western Amazonia where far western Brazil, southeastern Peru, and far northern Bolivia meet. It inhabits transitional forest and the edges of humid tropical evergreen terra firme forest, usually from the undergrowth up to the lower mid-story. In elevation it ranges from near sea level to 1,050 m (3,400 ft).
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The semicollared puffbird's feeding behavior and diet have not been documented.<p>The semicollared puffbird's breeding phenology has not been documented.<p>The semicollared puffbird's song is a "series of thin, rather high-pitched, melancholy, descending 'Fééeur' or 'pseuu' whistles, each at first widely spaced...and starting on the same pitch; then dropping in pitch, 'pseuu-uuu-uuu'."
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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