All species › Passerines › Tyrant flycatchers and allies › Cinnamon-crested Spadebill
Cinnamon-crested Spadebill | Platyrinchus saturatus
Bruinkopbreedbektiran | Picochato cresticanelo | Patinho-escuro
The Cinnamon-crested Spadebill is a small, dark spadebill of the lower storey of lowland forest in northern Amazonia. Like all spadebills it has a very broad, flat bill and a short tail. In the guide area it occurs only along the extreme eastern edge, mainly in forest on poor, sandy soils.
Voice
A sharp, dry kwip, often repeated, and a short, buzzy trill.
Recording: Phil Stouffer — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
9–10 cm, with a large head, a very broad, flat bill and a short tail. The upperparts are dark olive-brown; the male has a concealed cinnamon-orange crown patch, which is smaller or absent in the female. The face is fairly plain, with a pale eye-ring and pale lores. The throat is white, the breast brownish olive, the belly dull white to pale yellow.
Confusion species
Golden-crowned Spadebill Platyrinchus coronatus is smaller and paler, with a rufous crown with a yellow central stripe and a strongly patterned face with black marks. White-crested Spadebill Platyrinchus platyrhynchos is larger, with a grey head, a white crown patch and ochre underparts. White-throated Spadebill Platyrinchus mystaceus has a strongly patterned, yellowish face and lives in Andean montane forest.
Habitat
The lower storey of humid lowland terra firme forest, especially on poor, sandy soils, below about 500 m. It sits still on a thin twig and suddenly flies up to snatch an insect from the underside of a leaf. The nest is a small cup in the fork of a shrub or sapling, low above the ground.
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 far east, in Guainía, Vaupés and eastern Amazonas. In Peru very locally in the north-east, in Loreto. Absent from Ecuador and almost certainly from Bolivia, and from the Galápagos. The core of the range lies outside the guide area, in southern Venezuela, the Guianas and northern Amazonian Brazil, with a separate form south of the Amazon.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search tall forest on white sand in eastern Colombia and around Iquitos, and listen for the sharp calls in the lower storey. Stand still: the bird often stays on the same perch for a long time.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species lives in a large, still largely forested region, but is local and scarce.
Scientific name
Platyrinchus saturatus | Salvin & Godman, 1882
Salvin & Godman described the species in 1882 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Platyrinchus was introduced in 1805 by Desmarest, A-G. The genus name comes from Greek platus, 'flat', and rhunkhos, 'bill'. Latin saturatus means 'saturated, deeply coloured', referring to the dark plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Merume Mountains, Guyana.