All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies › Fulvous-crested Tanager
Fulvous-crested Tanager | Tachyphonus surinamus
Goudkuiftangare | Tangara crestifulva | Tem-tem-de-topete-ferrugíneo
The Fulvous-crested Tanager is a small, black tanager of Amazonia and the Guianas. The male has an ochre-yellow crown patch, a buff rump and long chestnut flank feathers; the female has a grey head and ochre underparts. In the guide area it lives in the lowlands east of the Andes, often in mixed flocks.
Voice
High, thin notes and a rapid, rich chatter as calls; the song is a series of high, scratchy notes mixed with chip calls.
Recording: Guilherme de Melo Becher — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
15–17 cm, with a pointed, dark bill. The male is glossy black, with an ochre-yellow crown patch that can be raised as a small crest, a buff rump, white at the bend of the wing, white underwing coverts, buffy white pectoral tufts and long chestnut to crimson flank feathers. The female has a grey head with a yellowish eye-ring, olive upperparts, a greyish white to buff throat and breast and an ochre belly. Juveniles resemble a duller female.
Confusion species
Male Flame-crested Tanager Loriotus cristatus has an orange-red crown, an ochre-yellow throat patch and no coloured flanks; the female of that species has a rufous crown and no yellow eye-ring. Male White-shouldered Tanager Loriotus luctuosus has a large white shoulder patch and a black rump. Yellow-crested Tanager Loriotus rufiventer is ochre-yellow below and lives mainly in the foothills.
Habitat
Middle and upper levels and edges of terra firme forest and várzea, also light woodland and scrubby areas, often on nutrient-poor soils, up to about 600 m in Colombia and 900 m in Ecuador. In mixed flocks it searches for insects and fruit. Little is known about the nest.
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 south-east, in the lowlands east of the Andes. In Ecuador in the Amazonian lowlands. In Peru in the north-east as far as the Amazon and the Marañón, and south of them to northern Junín and central Ucayali. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in southern Venezuela, the Guianas and Amazonian Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Check mixed flocks along the edges of lowland forest, especially on poor sandy soils, for a black tanager with chestnut flanks and a pale rump.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species is widespread; in the guide area it is local and fairly scarce.
Scientific name
Tachyphonus surinamus | (Linnaeus, 1766)
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as Turdus surinamus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Tachyphonus was introduced in 1816 by Vieillot. The genus name combines Greek takhus, 'fast', and phōneō, 'to speak' or 'to make a sound'. The specific name refers to Suriname. The specimen the first description was based on came from Suriname.