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Fulvous Wren | Cinnycerthia fulva
Vosbruine winterkoning | Cucarachero fulvo | Garrinchão-fulvo
The Fulvous Wren is the smallest and palest of the Cinnycerthia wrens, with a clear pale supercilium. It lives in groups in the cloud forest of the eastern slope of the Andes in south-eastern Peru and north-western Bolivia. Like its relatives, the group sings in fast choruses.
Voice
Fast, rich choruses of whistled and ringing phrases, sung together by the group; also hoarse, scraping contact calls.
Recording: Jacob Wijpkema — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
14–15 cm, with a straight, dark bill and a fairly long tail. Upperparts buffy brown to fulvous, the crown darker brown. Pale, buffy supercilium above a darker eyestripe. Underparts paler buff, the throat palest. Wings and tail with fine dark bars. The sexes are alike; young birds are duller.
Confusion species
Peruvian Wren Cinnycerthia peruana is larger and darker rufous-brown, without a clear supercilium, and lives north of this species' range. Grey-breasted Wood Wren Henicorhina leucophrys is smaller, with a short tail, a striped head and a grey breast. Mountain Wren Troglodytes solstitialis is smaller and has a shorter tail.
Habitat
Undergrowth, bamboo and edges of humid montane forest and cloud forest on the eastern slope of the Andes, roughly between 1800 and 3500 m. Groups forage low in dense growth for insects and spiders, often with mixed flocks. The nest is a globular structure of moss and fibres.
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 south-east, on the eastern slope of the Andes in Cusco and Puno, also in the Cordillera de Vilcabamba. In Bolivia in the Yungas of the north-west, mainly in La Paz. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador and the Galápagos. Not known outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Along the higher parts of the Manu road in Cusco and in the Yungas of La Paz, groups move through the roadside undergrowth; their chorus is heard most in the early morning.
Conservation status
Least Concern. East-slope cloud forest in southern Peru and Bolivia is still largely forested.
Scientific name
Cinnycerthia fulva | (Sclater, 1874)
Sclater described the species in 1874 as Thryophilus fulvus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Cinnycerthia was introduced in 1844 by Lesson. The genus name combines Cinnyris, a genus of sunbirds, with Certhia, the treecreeper genus. The species name comes from Latin fulvus, 'tawny' or 'fulvous'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Huasampilla, Cusco, Peru.