Passerines | Passeriformes

Families in this order

• Sapayoa | Sapayoidae1 speciesA family of a single species, the Sapayoa, which in the region occurs only in the Chocó, in the Pacific lowlands and foothills of western Colombia and northwestern Ecuador, in the understory of humid forest, often along streams and in shady ravines. It was long placed with the manakins, but it turns out to be the only American member of a group otherwise confined to the Old World, which includes the broadbills of Africa and Asia and the asities of Madagascar; it is therefore regarded as a living relic of an ancient distribution. In appearance it is unremarkable: a medium-sized, olive-green songbird with a slightly yellower belly, a fairly broad, flat bill and, in the male, a concealed yellow crown patch. It perches quietly and upright on low branches and makes short sallies to pick insects and spiders from leaves, and it also eats small fruit. It often moves with mixed flocks in the understory. The voice is inconspicuous and little known. The nest is a pear-shaped hanging structure of plant fibres suspended over a stream, like those built by broadbills.
• Manakins | Pipridae37 speciesThirty-seven species in fifteen genera live in the area of this guide, mainly in humid lowland forest of the Amazonian foothills and the Chocó and in foothill and cloud forest on the Andean slopes, home among others to the Golden-winged and Club-winged Manakins. Manakins are small, compact songbirds with a large head, a short, broad bill and in most species a short tail. The sexes differ strongly: males are black or green with bright red, yellow, white or blue areas, females plain olive green. They eat mainly small fruits, plucked from the branch in a short flight, together with insects. They are known for their display at traditional sites in the forest, where males, in a group or alone, keep a patch of ground or a branch clear and show off there: some species produce snapping, buzzing or even violin-like sounds with modified wing feathers, others jump to and fro, or two males perform a dance together. The female chooses a mate and does everything else alone: she builds a shallow cup slung in a horizontal fork of a twig, usually low above the ground, incubates the clutch of usually two spotted eggs and feeds the young. The male plays no further part.
• Cotingas | Cotingidae44 speciesIn the Andes and the adjoining lowlands the family numbers 44 species in 22 genera, and few families show such a range of forms: the Andean Cock-of-the-rock, national bird of Peru, which displays in groups in cloud-forest ravines, the green-and-black fruiteaters (Pipreola) of the montane forests, the grey, red-crested cotingas of scrub and Polylepis woodland high in the Andes, the plantcutters (Phytotoma) with a serrated bill for snipping off leaves and buds, and in the Amazonian lowlands the Purple-throated Fruitcrow, Bare-necked Fruitcrow, Amazonian Umbrellabird and Screaming Piha. Most are fruit-eaters with a short, broad bill and a wide gape, swallowing fruit whole and so carrying the seeds of laurels and other trees over long distances. In most species the sexes differ strongly: the male is colourful or carries wattles, a throat sac or a crest and attracts females with a striking call or display, while the female alone builds the nest and raises the young. The Screaming Piha gives one of the loudest and most characteristic sounds of the Amazon forest, a piercing whistled 'pee-pee-yoo'. The nest is usually a small, flimsy cup high in a tree, holding a single egg; the cock-of-the-rock instead plasters a nest of mud and plant material onto a rock face.
• Tityras, becards and allies | Tityridae26 speciesA family of tropical American suboscine songbirds numbering 26 species in seven genera in this guide, from the Chocó and the Andean slopes to the Amazonian lowlands, in forest, forest edge, plantations and semi-open country with trees. It is a composite group of varied appearance. The tityras are sturdy, large-headed birds, the males pearly white or pale grey with black, some with bare red skin around the eye and bill base; they perch conspicuously in treetops, eat mainly fruit and large insects and give dry, grunting or croaking calls. They nest in a cavity, often an old woodpecker hole. The becards are smaller, large-headed and fairly short-tailed, with a broad bill; the sexes usually differ, grey and black in the male and cinnamon in the female. They search the foliage for insects and build a large, untidy globular nest with an entrance at the side or bottom, hanging from a branch. The schiffornises and mourners are brownish, inconspicuous birds of the understory, more often heard than seen thanks to their clear, whistled songs.
• Sharpbill | Oxyruncidae1 speciesA family with a single species, the Sharpbill, which occurs patchily and locally in the canopy of humid foothill and montane forest, in the region mainly on the eastern foothills of the Andes in Peru and Bolivia. It is a starling-sized bird with a short, straight, sharply pointed conical bill, to which it owes its name. The upperparts are olive green, the head and underparts yellowish white densely marked with black spots and scales, and a concealed orange-red stripe runs along the crown that becomes visible only when the bird is excited; the eye is orange. The Sharpbill forages acrobatically, often hanging from twigs or the undersides of leaves, and probes rolled-up leaves and moss for insects and their eggs; it also eats fruit. Outside the breeding season it often travels with mixed flocks through the canopy. The song is a long, buzzy, descending trill that carries further than such an inconspicuous bird would suggest. The nest is a small, shallow cup fastened with spider silk to a branch high in a tree. Its place in the classification has long been uncertain; its closest relatives appear to be the cotingas and tityras.
• Royal flycatchers and allies | Onychorhynchidae5 speciesThis small family was long placed with the tyrant flycatchers and was split off only on the basis of DNA studies. In this guide it numbers five species in three genera, of the lower and middle layers of humid forest in the Chocó, the Amazonian lowlands at the eastern foot of the Andes and the lower mountain slopes. The bill is flat and broad, with long bristles at the corners of the mouth, suited to catching flying insects. The royal flycatcher has a crest that usually lies flat over the back of the head but opens in display or excitement into a broad fan, red in the male and yellow-orange in the female, with blue-black tips. The Myiobius species are olive with a bright yellow rump; they move restlessly through the foliage, fanning the tail and drooping the wings to flush insects, and often join mixed flocks. The Ruddy-tailed Flycatcher is a tiny cinnamon bird that sallies for insects from a perch. The nests are striking: the royal flycatcher hangs a long, ragged nest, sometimes more than a metre long, from a branch over a stream, and Myiobius builds a hanging pouch with a side entrance. The clutch is usually two eggs.
• Tyrant flycatchers and allies | Tyrannidae301 speciesThe largest bird family of the Americas and also the largest in this guide, with three hundred and one species in ninety-six genera, from the coastal desert and dry forest along the Pacific to the Amazon rainforest, cloud forest and the páramo and puna high in the Andes, and in towns and gardens. They are suboscines, whose song is innate rather than learned. Most have a rather broad, flat bill with bristles at the gape and catch insects by sallying from a perch to snatch them in flight or pick them from a leaf; many also eat fruit, and the Great Kiskadee even takes small fish and frogs. Size ranges from the pygmy tyrants, among the smallest songbirds in the world, to the robust kingbirds, which fiercely drive much larger birds from their territories. High in the Andes live the ground tyrants, which run over bare ground like wheatears, and on the Galápagos the Galapagos Flycatcher. Many species are olive and grey with wing bars and can be told apart only by voice and behaviour, but the male Vermilion Flycatcher is fiery red and the kiskadees are bright yellow with a black-and-white striped head. In the northern winter migrants from North America arrive, such as species of Empidonax and Contopus, and in the southern winter migrants from the south of the continent. Nests are highly varied: open cups, domed globes, long hanging pouches and cavities.
• Crescentchests | Melanopareiidae4 speciesFour species occur in this guide, all in the genus Melanopareia: the Elegant Crescentchest in the dry scrub and deciduous forest of southwestern Ecuador and northwestern Peru, the Marañón Crescentchest, found only in the dry valley of the Marañón and adjacent valleys, and the Olive-crowned Crescentchest in scrub and grassland on the Andean slopes of Bolivia. The family's fourth species, the Collared Crescentchest, lives in the cerrado. For a long time crescentchests were placed with the tapaculos, but genetic studies showed that they form a distinct, ancient branch among the South American songbirds. They are small, stocky birds with a fairly long tail and strong legs, and with a striking pattern: a pale eyebrow, a dark head and a black, crescent-shaped band across the breast, set off against the ochre or chestnut underparts. They live hidden low in dense vegetation, searching there for insects and other small invertebrates. In the breeding season the males sing a series of repeated, dry notes from an exposed perch, and often that is the only sign of their presence. The Marañón Crescentchest is vulnerable because of the clearance of its small range.
• Gnateaters | Conopophagidae5 speciesThe gnateaters are a small South American family represented in this guide by five species in two genera. Four belong to Conopophaga and live in the undergrowth of humid forest in the Amazonian lowlands and on the lower eastern slopes of the Andes. The fifth, the Rufous-crowned Antpitta (Pittasoma rufopileatum), lives in humid forest of the Chocó in western Colombia and north-western Ecuador; the genus Pittasoma was long placed with the antpittas, but DNA studies moved it to the gnateaters. These are birds of the dim forest floor and the lowest vegetation, with long legs, a short tail, a large head and a stout bill; Pittasoma is larger and markedly long-legged. In most Conopophaga species the male has a white tuft behind the eye. They sit still on a low perch or move over the ground in hops, searching the leaf litter for insects, spiders and other small animals. The family generally builds an open cup low in the vegetation. They are shy birds, more often heard than seen.
• Antbirds | Thamnophilidae166 speciesWith 166 species in 55 genera this is one of the largest songbird families in the guide, centred on the humid lowland forest on the eastern side of the Andes, along the Amazonian foothills, with a smaller number of species in the Chocó and in the cloud forest on the slopes. It includes antshrikes with a heavy bill hooked at the tip, small, active antwrens in the foliage and antbirds of the undergrowth. The colours are sober: males are often black or grey with small white spots on the wing, females brown or rufous, and many species have a hidden white patch on the back that shows when the bird is excited. They eat insects and spiders. A number of species follow swarms of army ants almost exclusively and catch the insects and other small animals that flee ahead of the ants; the ants themselves they do not eat. Dozens of birds of several species may gather around a single swarm. Pairs stay together for years in a fixed territory, which they defend with simple but distinctive songs, often as a duet. The nest is an open cup, often slung in a horizontal fork, and both parents incubate the clutch of usually two eggs.
• Antpittas | Grallariidae56 speciesA family of suboscine songbirds centred in the Andes, which reaches its greatest richness here: 56 species in four genera, on the floor of humid lowland forest in the Amazonian foothills and the Chocó, but above all in montane and cloud forest along the slopes, up into the scrub at the edge of the páramo. Antpittas are rotund birds with a large head, big dark eyes, long, strong legs and a tail so short as to be barely visible. The plumage is brown, olive and ochre, in some species with a scaled or streaked breast. They stand upright on the forest floor or on a low branch and progress in long hops, bob the body briefly and then stand motionless again. Hopping and tossing leaf litter, they search for earthworms, insects, larvae and other invertebrates. They are shy and far more often heard than seen: the song is a series of clear, hollow whistles, rising or falling in some species, delivered mainly in the half-light of dawn. Many species have small ranges, and new species have been discovered in the Andes even in this century. The nest is a cup of moss, leaves and rootlets, low in a shrub or on a stump, usually with two eggs.
• Tapaculos | Rhinocryptidae41 speciesThis South American family is richly represented in the region, with 41 species in five genera. By far the most belong to Scytalopus and live in the Andes, where each species often occupies its own altitudinal band or slope, from cloud forest and bamboo up to the treeline and the páramo. In addition, the large Ocellated Tapaculo (Acropternis) and the Ash-colored Tapaculo (Myornis) occur in montane forest, Liosceles lives in the Amazonian lowlands at the foot of the Andes, and the Crested Gallito (Rhinocrypta) in the dry scrub of the Chaco region. Tapaculos are small, rounded, dark grey or brown birds with a short tail that is often cocked, short rounded wings and strong legs with large feet. A distinctive feature of the family is a movable flap over the nostrils. They fly little and poorly and creep like mice through dense undergrowth, ferns, moss and fallen trunks, searching for insects and other small invertebrates. Because they seldom show themselves and the species look very much alike, the voice is the main means of identification: loud, endlessly repeated notes or rattling series ringing out from the thickets. Several species have been separated only in recent decades on the basis of their songs. The nest is a ball or cup of moss and rootlets in a cavity, a hole in a bank or among roots, usually with two white eggs.
• Antthrushes | Formicariidae10 speciesThe guide covers ten species in two genera, Formicarius and Chamaeza, spread from humid lowland forest of the Amazonian foothills and the Chocó to high in the Andean cloud forest. They are ground birds that look little like thrushes, despite the name: the body is round, the legs are fairly long and strong, and the short tail is held cocked while the bird walks with measured steps across the forest floor, which gives it something of a small rail. In Formicarius the plumage is dark brown and rufous, often with a black face or head and a pale ring around the eye; the Chamaeza species are browner, with scaled or streaked underparts. They search for insects, spiders and other invertebrates in the leaf litter by flicking leaves aside, and sometimes join swarms of army ants. They are shy and far more often heard than seen: the song is a clear, whistled series of notes, fast and falling in some species and drawn out or swelling in others, and they respond well to an imitated whistle. The nest is placed in a hollow in a stump or tree, often close to the ground, and usually holds two white eggs.
• Ovenbirds and woodcreepers | Furnariidae216 speciesA large family of tropical American suboscines, with two hundred and sixteen species in sixty genera in this guide, from dry forest and rainforest through cloud forest to páramo, puna and rocky coasts. The birds are mostly brown, rufous and cinnamon, often streaked or spotted, and the sexes look alike. Broadly they fall into two groups. The woodcreepers climb tree trunks like woodpeckers, supported by a tail with stiff, bare shaft tips, and use a straight or strongly curved bill to probe bark crevices, moss and epiphytes for insects and spiders; some follow army ant swarms to catch the animals fleeing ahead of them. The remaining species, such as leaftossers, foliage-gleaners, xenops, spinetails and canasteros, find their food by tossing leaf litter, searching dead leaves or clambering through foliage and scrub; in the open high mountains miners, earthcreepers and cinclodes walk on the ground, and cinclodes also forage along streams and on the rocky shore. The voice consists of rattles, trills and shrill series. Nesting habits vary widely: woodcreepers nest in tree cavities on a layer of bark flakes, others dig tunnels in earth banks, horneros of the genus Furnarius build an oven-shaped nest of mud, and spinetails build large, enclosed stick nests with a tubular entrance. The eggs are mostly white.
• Shrike-babblers, Erpornis and vireos | Vireonidae30 speciesVireos are small to medium-sized songbirds found only in the Americas; in the Andes and along the west coast the family numbers 30 species in six genera. Some are true vireos (Vireo): greenish or grey above, pale below, with a stouter bill than a warbler's and a small hook at the tip, and with the head and eye-stripe pattern as the main feature. Alongside them live the small, warbler-like greenlets (Hylophilus, Pachysylvia, Tunchiornis), the bright green shrike-vireos (Vireolanius) of the high canopy and the peppershrikes (Cyclarhis) with their heavy, strongly hooked bill, among them Black-billed Peppershrike of Andean cloud forest. Most species are resident, such as Brown-capped Vireo of the cloud forest; Red-eyed and Yellow-green Vireo come from the north after breeding to winter in Amazonia. They move slowly and deliberately through the foliage, plucking caterpillars and other insects from the leaves and also eating berries and small fruit. The nest is a deep, cup-shaped structure slung in a fork. They sing all day long, even in the midday heat.
• Crows, jays and magpies | Corvidae12 speciesIn this region the family is represented by jays alone: the guide includes twelve species in two genera, the small, blue Cyanolyca jays of cloud forest on the Andean slopes and the larger Cyanocorax jays of lowland forest, forest edge and dry woodland, such as the White-tailed Jay of the Tumbesian region and the green-and-yellow Inca Jay of montane forest. Crows and magpies are absent. Jays have a powerful all-purpose bill, bristly feathers over the nostrils and strong legs used for walking as much as hopping. They eat almost anything, hide food for later and remember where they put it; the family has the largest brains for body size of any bird. True song is absent — the calls are mostly harsh and grating — but some species mimic other sounds. They often move through the forest in noisy family groups, pairs stay together for a long time, they build a nest of twigs, and the sexes look alike.
• Larks | Alaudidae1 speciesGround birds in brown and sand, streaked all over and built to walk rather than hop: the hind claw is long and almost straight, and the back of the tarsus carries a row of separate scales instead of the smooth plate other songbirds have there. Almost all species sing on the wing, climbing or hovering, sometimes for minutes on end above ground that offers no song post. The nest is a scrape on bare soil lined with grass, and the chicks walk away from it before they can fly, which limits losses when the field is cut. Bills range from short and heavy for seed to long and curved for digging in the soil. In the region covered by this guide only the Horned Lark occurs, as an isolated population in the grasslands of the high plateau around Bogotá in Colombia, far from the other populations in North America.
• Donacobius | Donacobiidae1 speciesA family with a single species, the Black-capped Donacobius, a South American bird that in the region occurs mainly in the Amazonian lowlands east of the Andes, from Colombia to Bolivia, in marshes, reedbeds, waterside vegetation and floating mats of plants. It was formerly regarded as a mockingbird or a wren, but forms a family of its own related to the grassbirds and reed warblers of Africa and Asia. It is a slender bird with a black head, brown back, warm buff underparts, a long graduated tail with white tips and a bright yellow eye. On the side of the neck is a patch of bare orange-yellow skin that swells when the bird sings. Pairs often perch side by side at the top of the reeds and sing in duet with loud whistling and rasping notes, wagging their tails and bobbing towards each other. They eat insects and other small invertebrates gathered from the vegetation near water. Young from an earlier brood often help to raise later ones. The nest is a deep cup of grass and plant fibres placed in reeds or bushes above water.
• Swallows | Hirundinidae28 speciesBirds that take all their food in the air and are built entirely for it: long pointed wings, a very short flat bill with an enormous gape, and small weak feet on short legs, good for perching but hardly for walking. They drink and bathe by skimming low over water. The nest is a cup or closed flask of mud pellets against a wall, a self-dug tunnel in a steep bank, or a cavity — often in colonies. This region holds 28 species in ten genera, from the coastal desert and the rivers of the Amazonian lowlands up to the páramo, where Brown-bellied Swallow hunts along rock faces. Most are resident, but Barn Swallow and a few other species come from the north to spend the winter here; unlike the swifts they resemble in flight, these are ordinary songbirds that will settle on a wire.
• Waxwings | Bombycillidae1 speciesCompact songbirds with a strikingly soft, dense plumage without spot or streak, a crest, a black mask and a short bill with a wide gape. The red, horny plates at the tips of the secondaries, which give the family its name, occur in no other group of birds; the tail ends in a bright yellow or red band. For most of the year they live on berries, swallowed whole and passed through a short gut in minutes, so that a flock can work through an enormous quantity; in the breeding season they take insects on the wing over water. They defend no feeding territory and have no true song, only high silvery trills that keep the flock together. The nest is a loose cup of twigs, moss and lichen on a side branch, and the breeding area shifts from year to year with the berry crop.
• Gnatwrens and gnatcatchers | Polioptilidae9 speciesA small American family of songbirds numbering nine species in three genera in this guide, from dry scrub and dry forest on the Pacific side of Ecuador and northern Peru and in the Marañón valley to humid rainforest in the Chocó and the Amazonian lowlands at the foot of the Andes. They are small, slim, active birds with a thin, pointed bill. The gnatcatchers are mostly blue-grey above and white below, with a long, narrow black tail with white outer feathers that they constantly cock, spread and wave from side to side; in several species the male has a black cap or a black mask. The gnatwrens are browner, with a longer, very fine bill and a short or long, often cocked tail, and live in the undergrowth and vine tangles of humid forest. All species search restlessly for small insects and spiders in the foliage, the gnatcatchers often in mixed flocks. The voice consists of thin, nasal or squeaky calls; the song is a soft warble, and that of the Trilling Gnatwren a clear, even trill. The gnatcatchers' nest is a deep, neat cup of plant fibres bound with spider silk and often covered with lichen, placed on a branch.
• Wrens | Troglodytidae50 speciesSmall to medium-sized, mostly brown birds with short, rounded wings, a tail often held cocked and a fine, slightly curved bill for picking insects out of crevices. All but one species of the family live in the Americas, and 50 species in eleven genera occur in this guide, from the Amazonian and Chocó lowlands up to the páramo. Size ranges from the small Southern House Wren, which lives right into gardens and villages, to the large Campylorhynchus wrens, which live in family groups, such as Bicolored Wren in northern Colombia and Fasciated Wren in the dry forests of western Ecuador and Peru. Most species move unseen through the lowest layer of forest, scrub and marsh; the wood wrens (Henicorhina) are typical of the cloud-forest understorey, the Cinnycerthia wrens travel in noisy parties through montane bamboo, and the Cistothorus wrens live in grassland and marsh as high as the páramo. The song is remarkably loud for the size of the bird; in many tropical species male and female sing duets so tightly interlocked that they sound like one bird, and the nightingale wrens (Microcerculus) give long series of slow, pure whistles. The nest is usually a domed ball with a side entrance or is placed in a cavity, and several species also build separate roosting nests.
• Mockingbirds and thrashers | Mimidae10 speciesMedium-sized, slender songbirds with a long tail, sturdy legs and a straight to slightly curved bill, which feed much on the ground among shrubs and in open terrain. The family owes its name to mimicry; many species copy the calls and song phrases of their neighbours and weave in other sounds as well. The song is long and varied. They defend their territory fiercely and attack intruders that come too close to the nest. The nest is a sturdy cup of twigs in a dense, often thorny bush. The family is confined to the Americas; this guide includes ten species in two genera. The Tropical Mockingbird lives in open country in the north, the Long-tailed Mockingbird in the coastal desert and dry valleys of Ecuador and Peru, the Brown-backed Mockingbird in dry scrub high in the Andes of Bolivia, and the Chalk-browed Mockingbird in the Bolivian lowlands. The Galápagos have four species of their own, which set Darwin thinking about the origin of species: the Galápagos Mockingbird on most islands and three species each confined to its own island, of which the Floreana Mockingbird now survives only on two islets off Floreana. They are hardly shy there and live in groups that raise young together. The Grey Catbird comes from the north as a rare winter visitor.
• Dippers | Cinclidae2 speciesSquat birds with a stubby cocked tail, powerful legs with long toes and strong claws, and exceptionally dense, greasy plumage carrying far more feathers than a songbird of the same size usually does; the preen gland above the tail is proportionally enormous and supplies the oil that keeps the feathers waterproof. Most species dive in from a rock or straight out of flight, row underwater with short rounded wings, and walk along the bed into the current with the head down, so that the flow presses them against the gravel. Below the surface a flap closes the nostrils, a transparent third eyelid slides across the eye, and a heavy skeleton with little air in the bones holds them down. They feed on caddis, mayfly and stonefly larvae and small crustaceans taken from under the stones. The nest is a domed ball of moss with a side entrance, built behind a waterfall, in a rock crevice or bank wall or under a bridge, often just above the spray. In most species the song is loud and sustained and pitched exactly where it will carry over the roar of the water. Worldwide the family holds only five species, every one of them tied to fast-flowing water; in this guide these are the White-capped Dipper, which lives along fast, rocky streams and rivers of the Andes, from the foothills to high in the mountains, and the Rufous-throated Dipper.
• Thrushes and allies | Turdidae39 speciesMedium-sized birds with an upright carriage, long strong legs and a moderately long slender bill; this guide has 39 species in six genera. On the ground they work in short stages — a few hops, a halt to look and listen, then a strike — and besides earthworms and insects they eat many berries and fruits. The true thrushes (Turdus) range from the lowlands up to the páramo, where the Great Thrush is also common in villages and towns; in cloud forest solitaires (Myadestes, Entomodestes) and nightingale-thrushes (Catharus) sing, and from October to April thrushes from North America winter in the forests on the Andean slopes. The song is loud and fluting, built of repeated motifs and often delivered from a high perch, above all at dawn and dusk. The nest is a solid cup, in many species plastered inside with mud; young birds are spotted even where the adults are plain.
• Munias, parrotfinches, waxbills and allies | Estrildidae2 speciesSmall to very small seed-eaters with a short, thick conical bill — bright coral red in many species, silver-grey or blue-black in others — a compact body and short, rounded wings. The family is of Old World origin; the birds seen here go back to escaped or released cage birds. They live in parties the year round and take their food from the seed head itself, clambering, hanging or riding the stem down under their own weight, and from the ground beneath. The nest is a closed ball of interwoven grass with an entrance at the side, often drawn out into a short tube, set low in a tussock, a thorn bush or dense reed; both parents build and take turns to incubate. The nestlings carry a fixed pattern of black spots and lines at the back of the gaping bill, with coloured papillae at the gape that light up in the dark of the nest and point the parents to the food. That food is seed brought up softened in the crop and given out one chick at a time.
• Snowfinches and Old World sparrows | Passeridae1 speciesStocky, short-legged seed-eaters with a heavy conical bill whose cutting edges are sharp enough to crack a grain of wheat. The tongue carries a small extra bone, the preglossale, which serves as an anvil: the seed is turned against the palate, the husk peeled off and the kernel swallowed, the whole job taking a second. Adults live on seed; the young are raised on caterpillars and aphids. The nest is an untidy domed ball of grass, straw and feathers stuffed into a cavity — a tree hole, a wall crevice, a roof tile or another bird's abandoned nest — and usually stands in a loose colony, with two to four broods a year. Bathing is done in dry dust: the bird kicks out a scrape and works the sand through its plumage. Several species live beside people all year, in villages, farmyards, cities and grain stores, where spilt feed and the buildings themselves supply both food and nest holes.
• Wagtails and pipits | Motacillidae8 speciesSlender, long-legged songbirds that walk rather than hop: the foot pushes off, the head nods with it, and the tail is pumped up and down from time to time. In the area of this guide the family is represented only by pipits: eight species of the genus Anthus, from the páramo and puna high in the Andes to grassland, fields and the coastal plain of Peru, and in the east also open grassland in the lowlands. The bill is thin, straight and pointed, made for picking insects off the ground; the leg is long and fine, and the claw of the hind toe is greatly lengthened, in many species nearly as long as the toe itself, which gives purchase in grass and sedge. Pipits are brown and streaked and hard to tell apart; call, song and display flight, the pattern of the back feathers and the outer tail feathers are the best features. The nest is a cup on the ground, hidden under a tussock, and in most species the song is delivered in the air: up, sing, and down again on a parachuting descent.
• Finches, euphonias and allies | Fringillidae31 speciesIn the area of this guide the family numbers 31 species in four genera, for the most part euphonias and chlorophonias of lowland and cloud forest, along with siskins of open country up into the páramo and puna. In the siskins the conical bill is the mark of the family: seed is not swallowed but husked, held in a groove in the palate while the lower mandible slides the coat off. The small, compact euphonias and chlorophonias, glossy blue-black, yellow or green, eat mainly berries instead, especially of mistletoe, whose seeds pass quickly and undamaged through the gut, so that the birds spread the plant. Outside the breeding season the siskins range in flocks over seed-rich fields, scrub and grassland, with a bounding flight and persistent contact calls that identify them at a distance. Unlike most songbirds, many species feed their young not on insects but on regurgitated food, seed in the siskins and fruit in the euphonias.
• Thrush-tanager | Rhodinocichlidae1 speciesThe family consists of a single species, the Rosy Thrush-tanager, long placed among the tanagers but shown by DNA studies to form a separate, isolated branch of the songbirds. Its range is made up of a number of separate areas; in the guide it occurs only in northern Colombia, always in dense undergrowth of dry and semi-humid forest and forest edge in the lowlands and the lower foothills. The male is dark slate grey above, with a rosy red throat, breast and eyebrow; in the female that red is replaced by warm orange-brown. The bill is fairly long and pointed and the legs are sturdy. It lives close to or on the ground, where it tosses leaf litter aside with its bill in search of insects and other small animals, and it usually stays well hidden in the thickets. To see it, one follows the voice: the song is a series of rich, clear whistles, and mates sometimes sing in turn. The nest is a cup of plant material low in a shrub or dense thicket. For all the bright colours of the male, it is a species that is seldom seen.
• New World sparrows | Passerellidae59 speciesThe sparrows of the New World: seed-eaters with a short conical bill, sturdy legs and a fairly long, rounded tail, mostly brown and streaked above. Many species feed on the ground in leaf litter and under shrubs, using a way of scratching typical of the family: both feet kicked backwards at once in a short hop, so that the litter flies away and seeds and insects are exposed. In the streaked species identification turns mainly on the head pattern: crown stripes, supercilium, eye-stripe and malar stripe in fixed patterns. The nest is a small cup on the ground or low in a shrub. Since about 2017 they have been placed in a family of their own, separate from the Emberizidae. In the Andes and along the west coast the family numbers 59 species in nine genera. The brushfinches of Atlapetes reach their greatest diversity here, with many species each confined to a small stretch of the slopes, in cloud forest, forest edge and scrub up to the páramo; Arremon lives in the undergrowth of lowland and montane forest, and the Chlorospingus species, unlike the rest, move through the canopy in small flocks. Rufous-collared Sparrow is found in open country everywhere, from villages and fields to high in the Andes, Tumbes Sparrow belongs to the dry scrub of the Tumbesian region of Ecuador and Peru, and Tanager Finch lives in cloud forest in Colombia and Ecuador. A few northern species reach the region as rare winter visitors.
• New World blackbirds, troupials and allies | Icteridae56 speciesAn exclusively American family that does something different from other songbirds with its bill. The bill is straight, sharp and unhooked, and is used not to pinch things shut but to prise them open: the bird pushes the closed tip into a leaf sheath, a fruit or a crack in the bark and then forces the mandibles apart, exposing the food. In the Andes and along the west coast the family numbers 57 species in 21 genera, from oropendolas and caciques through the orioles (Icterus) to meadowlarks, grackles and cowbirds. In many species the males are boldly patterned in yellow, orange or red against black, while the females stay duller. The oropendolas, such as Crested and Russet-backed Oropendola, nest in colonies and weave long hanging nests at the branch tips of an isolated tree; the orioles weave smaller pouch nests, and other species build a cup in reeds or a bush. Cowbirds lay their eggs in the nests of other birds; Shiny Cowbird is one of the commonest brood parasites of open country. There are also species with small ranges, such as Red-bellied Grackle in the Colombian Andes and Bolivian Blackbird in the dry valleys of Bolivia, and in the northern winter orioles arrive from North America, while Bobolink passes through the region on its way south.
• New World warblers | Parulidae66 speciesSmall, short-billed insect-eaters of the foliage, nine to fifteen centimetres long and rarely heavier than fifteen grams. They work through a tree crown systematically, picking caterpillars and aphids from the undersides of leaves, hanging from a twig tip or catching an insect in a short sally. In the migratory species the plumage changes strongly with the season: in spring the males wear sharply defined patches of yellow, black, blue, orange or chestnut, and after the moult male, female and young bird often look greenish and vaguely marked, so that a wintering bird has to be identified on details such as undertail coverts, leg colour and wing bars. Part of these North American migrants winter in the northern Andes, such as Blackburnian Warbler and Canada Warbler, which from October to April travel with mixed flocks through the cloud forest. There are also many resident species, such as those of Basileuterus and Myiothlypis, the Myioborus species that flush insects with a spread tail, several of them found only in the Andes, and in the coastal mangroves and on the Galápagos the Yellow Warbler, there the only member of the family. The family is found only in the Americas.
• Cardinals and allies | Cardinalidae27 speciesAn exclusively American family of medium-sized songbirds. In many genera the bill is heavy, short and conical, with a curved upper edge and a broad base, built to crack hard seeds and stones; the tanagers of the genus Piranga, the ant-tanagers (Habia) and related genera have a slimmer bill and eat more insects and fruit. In the Andes and along the west coast the family numbers 29 species in twelve genera. The difference between the sexes is striking: in many species the male wears a single saturated colour over almost the whole body, red or deep blue, while the female is warm brown to olive green. Many species are resident, such as Golden Grosbeak of dry Andean valleys and the coast, the ant-tanagers of Chocó and Amazonian forest and Blue-black Grosbeak, but during the northern winter migrants arrive from North America, such as Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Summer Tanager and Scarlet Tanager. In Scarlet Tanager the male moults into a green plumage outside the breeding season, so that wintering birds often have to be judged on bill shape and wing pattern. They live in scrub, forest edge and forest, from the lowlands up into cloud forest, often sing from a high perch and build an open nest in a bush or tree.
• Mitrospingid tanagers | Mitrospingidae2 speciesA small family of tropical America with a few species long placed among the tanagers, until DNA studies showed that they form a branch of their own within the group of tanagers, cardinals and their relatives. The guide covers two species in two genera. The Dusky-faced Tanager lives in the humid lowlands of the Chocó in western Colombia and Ecuador, above all along streams, rivers and clearings with dense, wet thickets at the forest edge. It is a medium-sized, rather elongated bird with a dark, blackish face, plumage in shades of grey, olive and olive-yellow, and a strikingly pale eye that stands out in the dark face. It lives in noisy groups that move restlessly through the undergrowth, keeping in constant contact with sharp, chipping calls, and other species often join such a group. The Red-billed Pied Tanager is a black-and-white bird with a red bill that moves in small groups through the canopy of the Amazonian forest east of the Andes. Both species eat insects and other small invertebrates, searched for among leaves and twigs, as well as fruit. Little is yet known of their breeding.
• Tanagers and allies | Thraupidae291 speciesOne of the largest bird families in the world, with two hundred and ninety-nine species in ninety-one genera in this guide, from coastal desert, dry scrub and the grasslands of páramo and puna to rainforest, cloud forest and gardens, with the greatest richness on the humid slopes of the Andes. The family has been established in its current form only through DNA studies and includes birds of very different appearance. The typical tanagers, such as the species of Tangara, are small to medium-sized birds with a short, stout bill and often brilliantly colourful plumage; they eat mainly fruit and insects and travel through the canopy in mixed flocks. Also included are the honeycreepers and dacnises, with thin, curved bills and glossy blue or green plumage, which take nectar, fruit and insects; the flowerpiercers, whose hook-tipped bill slits the corolla to steal nectar; the Bananaquit; the seedeaters and the saltators with their thick seed-cracking bills; the sierra finches and yellow finches of the high Andes; and Darwin's finches of the Galápagos, which have evolved there into species with strikingly different bills. Song is usually simple, but clear and melodious in the saltators. The nest is generally an open cup in a tree or shrub, usually with two eggs; the Bananaquit builds a domed nest and the Swallow Tanager breeds in a burrow in a bank.