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Bar-breasted Piculet | Picumnus aurifrons
Goudkapdwergspecht | Carpinterito del Amazonas | Pica-pau-anão-dourado
The Bar-breasted Piculet is one of the smallest woodpeckers in South America, a piculet of the Amazonian lowlands south of the Amazon. It forages like a tit in thin twigs and vines, often in mixed flocks with other small birds. The male has yellow to orange-yellow dots on the forecrown, which the Dutch name refers to.
Voice
A high, thin, rapid trill, often slightly descending, and short, sharp tsit calls. Drums softly and briefly on thin twigs; a soft tapping is often heard while it feeds.
Recording: Nick Athanas — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
8 cm, with a short, straight, pointed bill and a short black tail with pale inner webs. The upperparts are plain olive-green. The crown is black; in the male with yellow or orange-yellow dots on the forecrown and white ones behind, in the female with white dots only. The throat and breast are yellowish white with fine dark barring, and the belly is paler with dark streaks. Young birds lack the coloured dots and are more faintly marked.
Confusion species
Lafresnaye's Piculet Picumnus lafresnayi, north of the Amazon, has a clearly barred back and more heavily barred underparts. Rufous-breasted Piculet Picumnus rufiventris is larger, with rufous underparts. Plain-breasted Piculet Picumnus castelnau has almost unmarked whitish underparts. In Bolivia White-wedged Piculet Picumnus albosquamatus has scaled rather than barred underparts, and in the foothills of south-eastern Peru Fine-barred Piculet Picumnus subtilis is slightly larger and more finely barred.
Habitat
Humid lowland forest on terra firme and in várzea, forest edges, secondary forest, clearings with scattered trees and river islands with young forest, mostly below 600 m, locally higher. It searches thin twigs, vines and dead wood for ants, termites and their larvae and eggs. The nest is a small cavity it excavates in a thin dead branch or trunk.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Peru in the Amazonian lowlands, mainly south of the Amazon and in the south-east. In Bolivia in the north and north-east of the lowlands. Not known with certainty from Colombia and Ecuador; absent from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area across much of Brazilian Amazonia.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the lowland forest of south-eastern Peru, for example in Madre de Dios, watch mixed flocks of small birds in the lower and middle storeys. Soft tapping in a thin twig or the high trill often gives a piculet away.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species has a large range and tolerates secondary forest and forest edges.
Scientific name
Picumnus aurifrons | Pelzeln, 1870
Pelzeln described the species in 1870 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Picumnus was introduced in 1825 by Temminck. The genus name refers to Picumnus, a Roman god of fertility and agriculture, brother of Pilumnus, whose name is related to Latin picus, 'woodpecker'. The species name comes from Latin aurum, 'gold', and frons, 'forehead', for the male's golden crown spots. The specimen the first description was based on came from Engenho do Gama, Caiçara, Salto do Girão and Borba, Brazil.