All species › Passerines › Ovenbirds and woodcreepers › Bay Hornero
Bay Hornero | Furnarius torridus
Bleeksnavelovenvogel | Hornero castaño | João-de-barro-castanho
The Bay Hornero is a dark, chestnut ovenbird of the river forests of the western Amazon basin. Unlike most of its relatives it lives mainly in the understorey of flooded forest and young river-edge forest, and less in open country. It too builds a mud nest.
No photograph of a living wild bird of this species with a suitable Creative Commons licence exists. Do you have one that meets the rules? Send it in.
Voice
A loud, rapid duet of shrill, rattling notes, as in other horneros, but often sung from cover. The call is a sharp chek.
Recording: GABRIEL LEITE — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
17–18 cm, with a fairly long, slightly decurved, pale horn-coloured bill. The plumage is mostly dark chestnut to rufous-brown, the crown slightly browner. A narrow, faint, pale buff supercilium. The throat is whitish, the rest of the underparts dark rufous-brown, the belly slightly paler. The legs are greyish. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Lesser Hornero Furnarius minor occurs in the same area but is smaller and paler, with a grey crown, pale underparts and a dark bill, and lives in young scrub on river islands. Pale-legged Hornero Furnarius leucopus is paler rufous-brown, with a clear white supercilium and a white throat.
Habitat
Várzea and young river-edge forest along the large whitewater rivers, on river islands and banks, often with Cecropia trees and dense scrub, below 300 m. It forages on the damp ground and along fallen branches for invertebrates. The mud nest sits on a branch or stump.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Colombia: only in the far south, along the Amazon near Leticia. Ecuador: scarce along the lower Napo. Peru: in the north-east, along the Amazon, the Marañón, the lower Ucayali and the Napo. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in western Amazonian Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Travel by boat or on foot along the river forests and islands of the Amazon near Iquitos or Leticia and listen for the loud duet from cover. Birds show themselves when walking on the damp ground or perching on a fallen trunk.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Its habitat, river-edge forest along large rivers, is limited and locally affected by logging and farming, but is continually renewed by river dynamics.
Scientific name
Furnarius torridus | Sclater & Salvin, 1866
Sclater & Salvin described the species in 1866 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Furnarius was introduced in 1816 by Vieillot. The genus name comes from Latin furnarius, 'baker' (from furnus, 'oven'), for the oven-shaped mud nest. The species name comes from Latin torridus, 'scorched, burnt', from torrere, 'to burn'; possibly for the dark rufous plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Ucayali River, Peru.