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Bahia Antwren | Herpsilochmus pileatus
Bahiamiersluiper | Tiluchí pileado | Chorozinho-de-boné
The Bahia Antwren is a small, black-capped antwren found only in a narrow coastal strip of Bahia in eastern Brazil. It does not occur in the guide area. It is included because it was formerly lumped with related species, among them the Black-capped Antwren of Bolivia, so that older records under this name fall within the guide area.
Voice
The song is an accelerating, descending series of short notes ending in a trill. Calls are short, nasal notes.
Recording: GABRIEL LEITE — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12 cm, slender, with a fairly long, white-tipped black tail and a thin bill. The male has a black crown, a long white supercilium and a black eyestripe; the back is grey with black and a hidden white patch, and the wings are black with white wingbars. The underparts are white to pale grey. The female has a black crown with white spots and a breast tinged pale ochraceous.
Confusion species
Black-capped Antwren Herpsilochmus atricapillus is nearly identical and lives in Bolivia; both were formerly treated as one species and differ mainly in song and distribution. Creamy-bellied Antwren Herpsilochmus motacilloides of the eastern slope in Peru has creamy-yellow underparts and a spotted crown in the male.
Habitat
Restinga, dense scrub and low forest on sandy soil along the coast, also at forest edges and in more humid forest inland; from sea level to about 500 m. It searches in pairs for insects in the mid-storey and canopy, often in mixed flocks.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Does not occur in the guide area; absent from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area only in the coastal strip of Bahia in eastern Brazil. Older reports for the guide area refer to Black-capped Antwren in Bolivia.
How and when to look
Not to be expected in the guide area. Antwrens with a black crown in Bolivia are Black-capped Antwrens; in Bahia the species can be found in restinga and coastal forest around Salvador and farther south.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. Its small range in the coastal strip of Bahia is under pressure from building, tourism and clearance of restinga.
Scientific name
Herpsilochmus pileatus | (Lichtenstein, 1823)
Lichtenstein described the species in 1823 as Myiothera pileata; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Herpsilochmus was introduced in 1847 by Cabanis. The genus name combines Greek herpō, 'to creep about', and lokhmē, 'thicket, copse'. The species name comes from Latin pileatus, 'capped'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bahia, Brazil.