Pale-legged Hornero
Furnarius leucopus
Thrush-sized, plump bird of open habitats, especially near water. Particularly fond of riverside woodland but also around human settlements, clearings, and roadsides. Builds an impressive dome-shaped mud nest. Rich rufous above and pale tan below, with a whiter throat and eyebrow. Dark reddish-brown eye. Most often seen strutting confidently on the ground, and also perches up quite high to sing: listen for a long, loud, descending series of rough chip notes. Occurs in lowlands across much of South America, from the base of the Andes in Peru to far eastern Brazil.
Identification
The pale-legged hornero is 15 to 18 cm (5.9 to 7.1 in) long and weighs about 37 to 49 g (1.3 to 1.7 oz). It is a medium-sized hornero with a long and nearly straight bill. The sexes' plumages are alike. Adults of the nominate subspecies F. l. leucopus have a wide whitish supercilium, brownish gray ear coverts, and a tawny-rufous malar area. Their crown is dark rufescent brown. Their back, rump, and uppertail coverts average bright orange rufous but vary between tawny rufous and rufous amber. Their tail is chestnut. Their wing coverts are chestnut and their flight feathers blackish with a wide chestnut band. Their throat is white that becomes tawny-ochraceous on the breast. Their flanks are paler tawny-ochraceous, the center to their belly nearly whitish, and their undertail coverts whitish with dark brown bases. Their iris is usually reddish brown or chestnut, and gray-brown or gray in tricolor. Their maxilla is dusky horn at its base with a paler culmen and tip and their mandible is also pale. Their legs and feet are pale pinkish, pearly gray, or whitish. Juveniles resemble adults but for a visibly shorter bill and the shape of their flight and tail feathers.<p>Subspecies F. l. tricolor has a grayer crown, more ochraceous back, and paler wings and tail than the nominate. F. l. assimilis has a lighter, more ochraceous rump, wings, and tail than tricolor, and a paler wing band. F. l. araguaiae is intermediate between tricolor and assimilis, with a brighter back than the former and a smaller wing band.
Taxonomy
The pale-legged hornero's taxonomy is unsettled. The International Ornithological Committee (IOC), BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW), and the Clements taxonomy assign it these four subspecies:<p>The South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society (SACC) adds three others, F. l. cinnamomeus (Lesson, 1844), F. l. longirostris (von Pelzeln, 1856), and F. l. endoecus (Cory, 1919). The IOC, HBW, and Clements treat cinnamomeus as the species Pacific hornero and the other two as the Caribbean hornero. Early authors (e.g. Chapman) had treated them separately. The SACC accepts that cinnamomeus may deserve species rank but declined to make the split due to "insufficient published data".<p>Some authors have treated what is now the pale-billed hornero (F. torridus) as a subspecies of the pale-legged hornero.<p>This article follows the four-subspecies model.
- Scientific name
- Furnarius leucopus
- Authority
- Swainson, 1838
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Furnariidae
- Genus
- Furnarius
Range and habitat
The subspecies of the pale-legged hornero are found thus:<p>The pale-legged hornero inhabits a wide variety of semi-open to open landscapes. These include forest and woodlands along rivers (gallery forest), the edges of secondary forest, agricultural areas, and parks and gardens in towns. It favors humid areas, usually near water. In elevation it mostly occurs below 1,100 m (3,600 ft), though it seldom exceeds 400 m (1,300 ft) in Bolivia and locally reaches 1,700 m (5,600 ft) in Peru.
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
Migration pattern: Resident species.
Conservation
Population trend: rising.
- Population trend
- rising
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
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Zonotrichia albicollis
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