All species › Passerines › Tityras, becards and allies › Black-capped Becard
Black-capped Becard | Pachyramphus marginatus
Zwartkapbekarde | Anambé capirotado | Caneleiro-bordado
The Black-capped Becard is a small becard of the Amazonian rainforest canopy. It usually stays high in the crowns and travels with mixed flocks of insectivores. The male is grey with a black cap, the female has a rufous crown and an olive-green back.
Voice
The song is a clear, melodious series of whistles, often first rising and then accelerating, like tiu-tiu-tiu-tew-tew. Also short, soft calls.
Recording: Fabrício Grigolin — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
14 cm, with a large head, a short, stout bill and a fairly short tail. The male has a glossy black crown, a grey nape and a black back partly mixed with grey; the underparts are pale grey. The wings are black with white edges to the coverts and tertials and a white bar across the scapulars; the black tail has white tips. The female has a rufous crown, an olive-green back, yellowish underparts and cinnamon edges to the wing feathers. Young males at first resemble the female.
Confusion species
White-winged Becard Pachyramphus polychopterus is larger and darker; the male has dark grey underparts and an almost black back, the female a browner crown without a rufous cap. Cinereous Becard Pachyramphus rufus is paler grey, with white lores, and lives mainly along rivers. Chestnut-crowned Becard Pachyramphus castaneus has a chestnut crown with a grey band behind it, but rufous-brown upperparts and no pale wing edges.
Habitat
The canopy and edges of humid lowland forest, mainly terra firme, less in várzea and tall secondary forest; up to about 1000 m at the foot of the Andes. It searches for insects and spiders among the leaves, often in mixed flocks, and also takes some fruit. The nest is a large, globular ball of plant material with a side entrance, high in a tree.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia in the Amazon region east of the Andes. In Ecuador and Peru in the eastern lowlands. In Bolivia in the north and east, in Pando, Beni, La Paz and Santa Cruz. Absent west of the Andes and from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in Venezuela, the Guianas and Amazonian and Atlantic Forest Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Scan the crowns from canopy towers and walkways in the eastern lowlands, where mixed flocks pass through. The song is often the first clue.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species disappears where forest is cleared, but still occurs over large areas.
Scientific name
Pachyramphus marginatus | (Lichtenstein, 1823)
Lichtenstein described the species in 1823 as T[odus] marginatus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Pachyramphus was introduced in 1840 by Gray. The genus name comes from Greek pakhus, 'stout, thick', and rhamphos, 'bill'. The species name is Latin marginatus, 'edged, bordered', after the pale edges of the wing feathers. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bahia, Brazil.