All species › Passerines › Gnatwrens and gnatcatchers › Chattering Gnatwren
Chattering Gnatwren | Ramphocaenus sticturus
Hellmayrs muggensluiper | Soterillo parloteador | Chirito-tagarela
Chattering Gnatwren is a small, long-billed gnatwren with a long, wagging tail, until recently treated as a subspecies of Trilling Gnatwren. It is mainly distinguished by voice: its song is a rattling chatter instead of a clear trill. In the guide area it lives in south-western Amazonia in Peru and Bolivia.
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Voice
The song is a dry, rattling chatter of rapidly repeated notes, rougher and less musical than the trill of Trilling Gnatwren. Also nasal, harsh calls.
Recording: GABRIEL LEITE — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
12–13 cm, with a long, straight, thin bill and a long, narrow, blackish tail with white spots and tips on the outer feathers. The upperparts are brown. A buff stripe runs above the eye; the cheeks, sides of the neck, breast and flanks are buff with an ochre tinge. The throat is whitish, the centre of the belly paler. The sexes are alike; juveniles are duller and shorter-billed.
Confusion species
Trilling Gnatwren Ramphocaenus melanurus is almost identical but paler and less ochre, and has a clear, even trill as its song; it lives further north. Collared Gnatwren Microbates collaris has a short tail and a black breast band. Gnatcatchers (Polioptila) have a shorter bill and grey upperparts.
Habitat
Dense vine tangles and tangled undergrowth in humid terra firme forest, at forest edges, in openings with vines, in bamboo and in secondary forest, in the lowlands and lower foothills up to about 1000 m. It forages in pairs for insects and spiders in the lower strata and mid-levels, often in mixed flocks. The nest is a cup low in the vegetation.
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 south of the Amazon and the Marañón, from Loreto south to Madre de Dios and Puno. In Bolivia in the north and north-west (Pando, Beni, La Paz). Absent from Colombia, Ecuador and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in western and central Amazonian Brazil, east to Mato Grosso.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the lowland forest of south-eastern Peru, for example around Puerto Maldonado and in Manu, listen for the rattling chatter from dense vine tangles. Wait for the bird to appear briefly in an opening; the long bill and wagging tail are then visible.
Conservation status
Not evaluated as a separate species. Numbers appear stable; the species tolerates forest edges and secondary forest, but depends on nearby forest.
Scientific name
Ramphocaenus sticturus | Hellmayr, 1902
Hellmayr described the species in 1902 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Ramphocaenus was introduced in 1819 by Vieillot. The genus name comes from Greek rhamphos, 'bill', and kainos, 'new, strange', after the very long, slender bill that Vieillot described. The species name comes from Greek stiktos, 'spotted', and oura, 'tail': 'spot-tailed'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade, Mato Grosso, Brazil.