Cinnamon Attila
Attila cinnamomeus
Medium-sized sluggish flycatcher of riverine and disturbed habitats. Key marks are entirely cinnamon plumage and large-headed, plain-faced appearance; bill seems heavy and is entirely black. Sits still, peering about, before sallying to foliage for insects. Inhabits mid-story and understory, often at forest edge. Found in forest along rivers and oxbow lakes, in abandoned plantations, and at savanna edges, usually near water. Similar to Dull-capped Attila but has dark eyes and different voice. Most common calls are various mournful whistles.
Taxonomy
The cinnamon attila was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the flycatchers in the genus Muscicapa and coined the binomial name Muscicapa cinnamomea. Gmelin based his description on the "cinnamon flycatcher" that had been described in 1783 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his book A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham had access to a specimen from Cayenne in the Leverian Museum in London. The cinnamon attila is now one of seven flycatchers placed in the genus Attila that was introduced in 1831 by the French naturalist René Lesson. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised. A molecular genetic study published in 2020 found that the cinnamon attila is sister to the rufous-tailed attila (Attila phoenicurus).
- Scientific name
- Attila cinnamomeus
- Authority
- (Gmelin, JF, 1789)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Tyrannidae
- Genus
- Attila
Range and habitat
The cinnamon attila is found in one contiguous range centered on the Amazon Basin. In the southwest it is at the Basin's headwaters in Ecuador and Peru; in northwest Bolivia it is centered on headwater tributaries of the Amazon's Madeira River; in Bolivia's northeast it is only on the headwaters of the Guapore, (on the Brazil-Bolivia border), but not on downstream sections, that flow into the Madeira.<p>Northwest of the Amazon Basin the continuous range extends into central and northeastern Colombia. In southeastern Venezuela, the cinnamon attila range occurs on the upper Orinoco River drainage; it continues into eastern and northeastern Venezuela and the Guianas, avoiding only the central Orinoco. Its range stays contiguous along the Caribbean coast through the Guianas and only ends south and southeast of the Amazon River outlet with Marajo Island, and the outlet of the downstream Tocantins River, in the northeastern Brazilian state of Maranhão on the Atlantic coast.
- Migration
- Resident species
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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Rare white snowball shrouded in mystery. Nonbreeding birds have buffy fringes to head and back feathers that wear to white by spring. Breeding males almost pure white except for limited black in wings. Breeding females have dark streaking on back. Breeds almost exclusively on St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea; winters on the coast of western Alaska. Very similar to Snow Bunting but paler, usually with white rump; intermediate birds may be hybrids.
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