Olive-backed Foliage-gleaner
Automolus infuscatus
Dark brown foliage-gleaner of mature rainforest understory. Warm dark brown body, with a clean whitish throat patch and reddish brown tail. Does not have prominent reddish brown in the wings like many other foliage-gleaners do; the clean whitish throat, plain face (without a strong eyebrow) and habit of foraging low are other good distinguishing features to tell it apart from other foliage-gleaners. Primarily found in the understory of mature rainforest. Listen for its song, a musical trill with stuttered introductory note, “ch-trrrrrrrr”, similar to that of Chestnut-crowned Foliage-gleaner from denser secondary growth habitats, but slightly lower and with a more distinct introductory note.
Identification
The olive-backed foliage-gleaner is 18 to 19 cm (7.1 to 7.5 in) long and weighs about 27 to 40 g (0.95 to 1.4 oz). It is a fairly large member of its genus and has a heavy bill. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies A. i. infuscatus have a mostly blackish brown face with faint reddish streaks on the ear coverts and grizzled blackish brown and buff lores. Their forehead is blackish brown with wide but inconspicuous rufescent brown streaks that become faint on the dark brown crown. They have a vague dark brown collar with faint light brown streaks. Their back and rump are rich dark olivaceous-brown that blends to dark reddish brown uppertail coverts. Their wing coverts are rich dark brown and their flight feathers slightly paler with a rufescent tinge. Their tail is dark reddish chestnut. Their throat and the sides of their neck are white, their center breast white with a gray wash that becomes buffy before their light buff-brownish belly. The sides of their breast are dark olive-brown, their flanks rufescent brown, and their undertail coverts pale brown. Their iris is dark brown, light brown, or hazel; their maxilla black to dark olive-horn; their mandible olive horn to gray to pale brown; and their legs and feet grayish green to yellowish olive. Juveniles are slightly darker and duller than adults.<p>Subspecies A. i. purusianus has more rufescent (less olivaceous) upperparts than the nominate. A. i. cervicalis has a more rufescent crown and hindneck than the nominate, with slightly more brownish flanks. A. i. badius has the reddest brown back and grayest lower breast and belly of all the subspecies.
Taxonomy
The olive-backed foliage-gleaner has these four subspecies:<p>What is now the Para foliage-gleaner (A. paraensis) was a fifth subspecies. Following a 2002 publication, major taxonomic systems elevated it to species rank.<p>The olive-backed foliage-gleaner, Para foliage-gleaner, Pernambuco foliage-gleaner (A. lammi), and white-eyed foliage-gleaner (A. leucophthalmus) form a superspecies.
- Scientific name
- Automolus infuscatus
- Authority
- (Sclater, PL, 1856)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Furnariidae
- Genus
- Automolus
Range and habitat
The olive-backed foliage-gleaner is a bird of the Amazon Basin. Its subspecies are found thus:<p>The olive-backed foliage-gleaner inhabits tropical evergreen forest, primarily terra firme but also várzea and secondary forest. In elevation it ranges from near sea level to 700 m (2,300 ft).
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The olive-backed foliage-gleaner is a year-round resident throughout its range.<p>The olive-backed foliage-gleaner feeds on a variety of larval and adult insects and spiders, and also eats small lizards. It forages singly or in pairs, and most of the time as part of a mixed-species feeding flock. It feeds mostly in the forest undergrowth though it occasionally will do so to the mid-storey but only rarely to the canopy. It acrobatically gleans and pulls prey from epiphytes, debris, bark crevices, and especially from clumps of dead leaves.<p>The olive-backed foliage-gleaner's breeding season or seasons have not been defined but birds in breeding condition have been observed somewhere in almost every month of the year. It is thought to be monogamous. It builds a nest in a chamber at the end of a tunnel it excavates in an earthen bank. The clutch size is two eggs. Nothing else is known about its breeding biology.<p>The olive-backed foliage-gleaner's song is "a loud, fast, staccato, slightly descending rattle, 'tchi-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r' ". Its calls include "a sharp 'chik-uh' or 'chík-wuk' " and "chik-qwaah".
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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