Double-banded Graytail
Xenerpestes minlosi
Rare but distinctive if seen well. Small bird that is dingy gray above and off-white below with bold white wingbars and a white eyebrow. Actively forages by hitching along branches, often hanging upside-down. Most often seen singly or in pairs in mixed-species flocks, typically in the canopy. Listen for a strange rapid insect-like trill. Occurs in humid lowland forests and edges from eastern Panama to northwest Ecuador.
Identification
The double-banded greytail is 11 to 12 cm (4.3 to 4.7 in) long. It is a tiny furnariid that resembles a warbler. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have olive-buff lores, a creamy white supercilium, and a dark gray line behind the eye on an otherwise grayish face. Their crown is blackish and their back, rump, and tail are dark gray. Their wings are dark gray with yellowish at the bend and two white bars on the coverts. Their throat and underparts are creamy whitish with some grayish flecks on the breast and olive-buff undertail coverts. Their iris is light brown, their maxilla dark brown, their mandible grayish white, and their legs and feet grayish brown. Juveniles have a less distinct supercilium than adults, with grayer underparts and no wingbars. Subspecies X. m. umbraticus has darker upperparts, wings, and tail than the nominate.
Taxonomy
The double-banded greytail has two subspecies, the nominate X. m. minlosi (Berlepsch, 1886) and X. m. umbraticus (Wetmore, 1951). It shares genus Xenerpestes with the equatorial greytail (X. singularis) and together they are sister species to the orange-fronted plushcrown (Metopothrix aurantiaca).
- Scientific name
- Xenerpestes minlosi
- Authority
- Berlepsch, 1886
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Furnariidae
- Genus
- Xenerpestes
Range and habitat
The nominate subspecies of the double-banded greytail is found in Colombia from near the Caribbean coast into the Magdalena River Valley as far south as Boyacá and Santander departments. Subspecies X. m. umbraticus is found in eastern Panama's Darién Province and south through western Colombia into northwestern Ecuador's Esmeraldas and Pichincha provinces. It is rare and local in Ecuador. The species inhabits lowland and foothill evergreen forest, both primary and mature secondary. In elevation it ranges from near sea level to 900 m (3,000 ft) though it reaches only about 500 m (1,600 ft) in Ecuador.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The double-banded greytail is a year-round resident throughout its range.<p>The double-banded greytail feeds on arthropods. It forages singly or in pairs and readily joins mixed-species feeding flocks. It forages from the forest's midstorey to its canopy, especially in dense tangles of vines. It gleans prey from foliage live and dead, often hanging upside down on the underside of leaves, and also gleans from twigs and sometimes flowers.<p>Nothing is known about the double-banded greytail's breeding biology.<p>The double-banded greytail's song is "a long, dry, extremely rapid chattering trill on same pitch, increasing in volume". Its call is "a sharp, thin, inflected note".
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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