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Golden-fronted Whitestart | Myioborus ornatus
Zwartoorzanger | Candelita adornada | Mariquita-de-fronte-dourada
The Golden-fronted Whitestart is a species of upper montane forest in the northern Andes, from western Venezuela to the extreme north of Ecuador. It lives higher than the Slate-throated Whitestart, up to the treeline. In the south of its range it meets the Spectacled Whitestart, with which it locally hybridizes.
Voice
The call is a thin, high tsip. The song is a rapid, lively series of high chip notes, sometimes with short trills.
Recording: Mauricio Cuellar Ramirez (@Birding.travel) — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm, with a long, often fanned tail. Forehead, face and throat are yellow, with a black patch at the rear of the ear-coverts; hindcrown and nape are blackish. The upperparts are olive-grey, the underparts yellow and the undertail coverts white. The black tail has much white in the outer feathers. Birds of the Eastern Andes of Colombia have a golden-orange forehead; those of the Central and Western Andes and of Ecuador are paler yellow on the face. The sexes are alike. Juveniles are duller and browner.
Confusion species
Spectacled Whitestart Myioborus melanocephalus has a dark head with a rufous or black crown and yellow only around the eye and on the lores, not an all-yellow face; intermediates occur in southern Colombia and northern Ecuador. Slate-throated Whitestart Myioborus miniatus lives lower and has a slate-grey back, a dark throat and a dark face.
Habitat
Cloud forest and upper montane forest, forest edges, shrubbery at the treeline and the transition to páramo, mainly from about 2300 to 3400 m. It forages in the lower and middle levels, often in mixed flocks; it fans tail and wings to flush insects. As in related species, the nest is on or near the ground in a bank.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Colombia: in the Eastern, Central and Western Andes. Ecuador: only in the extreme north (Carchi). Absent from Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in western Venezuela (Táchira).
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In Colombia, in upper montane forest at for example Chingaza National Park near Bogotá or above Manizales in the Central Andes; in mixed flocks at the forest edge, watch for a warbler with a yellow face and a fanned, white-edged tail.
Conservation status
Not Evaluated in this circumscription. The species is fairly common within its limited range; deforestation in the Colombian Andes is a local threat.
Scientific name
Myioborus ornatus | (Boissonneau, 1840)
Boissonneau described the species in 1840 as Setophaga ornata; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Myioborus was introduced in 1865 by Baird. The genus name combines Greek muia, 'fly', with -boros, '-devouring': fly-eater. The species name comes from Latin ornatus, 'adorned, decorated'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bogotá, Colombia.