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Amazonian Plain Xenops | Xenops genibarbis
Amazonische effen xenops | Picolezna liso amazónico | Bico-virado-da-amazônia
The Amazonian Plain Xenops is a small brown forest bird with an upturned, wedge-shaped bill and a silvery-white cheek stripe. Like a tit, it forages hanging and twisting along thin branches and vines, and it is a regular member of mixed flocks. The species was split from the former Plain Xenops Xenops minutus in the broad sense.
Voice
The song varies by region: in Colombia a fast, chattering trill, in Peru a descending series of high, lisping notes and in Ecuador rather a rising series. The call is a short, high note, single or repeated.
No recording with a suitable Creative Commons licence is available for this species yet.
Identification
12 cm, small, with a short, wedge-shaped bill with a clearly upturned lower mandible. The upperparts are plain olive-brown, the crown sometimes with faint pale streaks; the rump and tail are rufous, the tail with black in the centre. A narrow buff supercilium and a silvery-white stripe below the eye across the cheek. The underparts are olive-brown, with faint pale streaks on the breast. In flight a cinnamon band across the wing. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Streaked Xenops Xenops rutilans and Slender-billed Xenops Xenops tenuirostris are clearly streaked on the head, back and underparts. Rufous-tailed Xenops Microxenops milleri is streaked, has a straight bill and no white cheek stripe. Wedge-billed Woodcreeper Glyphorynchus spirurus has a similar bill, but climbs trunks and props itself on its tail.
Habitat
The interior and edges of humid forest on terra firme and in várzea, semi-deciduous forest and mature secondary forest, from the lowlands to about 1300–1400 m, locally to 2000 m in Colombia. It forages in the lower and middle storeys along thin branches, vines and dead twigs for insects and larvae, which it picks out of the wood. The nest is in a cavity in dead wood, often self-excavated.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Colombia: east of the Andes, in the Amazonian and Orinoco lowlands. Ecuador: in the eastern lowlands and foothills. Peru: in the Amazonian lowlands and foothills. Bolivia: in the lowlands and foothills of the north and east. Absent from the Galápagos. Plain xenops west of the Andes, in northern Colombia and western Ecuador, are now often treated as a separate species, Northern Plain Xenops Xenops mexicanus. Outside the guide area in Venezuela, the Guianas and Brazilian Amazonia.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Follow mixed flocks in the midstorey; the xenops often hangs upside down from thin twigs and taps at dead wood. In a good view the white cheek stripe is the first feature.
Conservation status
Not evaluated as a separate species. Plain Xenops in the broad sense is assessed as Least Concern; the species has a very large range and tolerates secondary forest.
Scientific name
Xenops genibarbis | Illiger, 1811
Illiger described the species in 1811 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. He introduced the genus Xenops in that same work. The genus name comes from Greek xenos, 'strange, unusual', and ōps, 'face'. The original description stresses the bill, with a straight upper edge and an upturned lower edge. The species name comes from Latin gena, 'cheek', and barba, 'beard', referring to the pale malar stripe. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cametá, Pará, Brazil.