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Dusky Piha | Lipaugus fuscocinereus
Grauwe piha | Guardabosques oscuro | Cricrió-escuro
The Dusky Piha is the largest and longest-tailed piha, a grey cotinga of high montane forest in the northern Andes. It often moves through the canopy in small groups, together with mixed flocks. Its loud whistle carries far through the cloud forest.
Voice
A loud, piercing whistle, roughly pee-a-weeeoo, the last syllable sliding down the scale; often repeated by several birds. In display the wings make a loud noise.
Recording: Juan Freile — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
31–33 cm, slender, with a long tail and a straight, dark bill with a paler base. Mid-grey above with darker grey wings and tail, paler grey below with a brownish wash on the breast and belly. The iris is dark brown and the legs grey. The sexes are alike. Young birds have rufous tips to the wing coverts.
Confusion species
Chestnut-capped Piha Lipaugus weberi is smaller and darker, with a chestnut cap and a yellow eye-ring, and lives only in a small area of Antioquia, lower on the slope. Grey-tailed Piha Snowornis subalaris and Olivaceous Piha Snowornis cryptolophus are olive-green and live lower. Smoke-colored Pewee Contopus fumigatus is much smaller, with a short crest. Great Thrush Turdus fuscater is browner, with an orange bill and orange legs.
Habitat
The canopy and edges of humid montane forest and cloud forest, also old secondary forest, between about 1700 and 3100 m. It feeds mainly on fruit, plucked with a short sally from a perch, and probably insects; it often joins mixed flocks. The only nest described was a cup of tendrils on a platform of twigs, with one egg.
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 all three ranges of the Andes. In Ecuador along the east slope. In Peru only in the far north, north of the Marañón valley, where it is rare and local. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Hardly or not at all outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In cloud forest on the east slope in Ecuador or in the Central Andes of Colombia, for example around Manizales, look for mixed flocks in the canopy and listen for the loud whistle.
Conservation status
Least Concern, but the population is probably declining because of the clearance of high montane forest.
Scientific name
Lipaugus fuscocinereus | (de Lafresnaye, 1843)
De Lafresnaye described the species in 1843 as Querula fusco-cinerea; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Lipaugus was introduced in 1828 by Boie. The genus name comes from Ancient Greek lipaugēs, 'dark' or 'devoid of light'. The species name comes from Latin fuscus, 'dusky', and cinereus, 'ash-grey', for the dark grey plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bogotá, Colombia.