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Grey-browed Brushfinch | Arremon assimilis
Grijsbrauwstruikgors | Matorralero cejigrís | Tico-tico-de-sobrancelha-cinza
The Grey-browed Brushfinch is the most widespread stripe-headed brushfinch of the northern Andes, from Colombia to southern Peru. It was included in Stripe-headed Brushfinch Arremon torquatus in the broad sense until that group was split. It lives in pairs on and just above the ground in the undergrowth of montane forest, often in bamboo.
Voice
Very high, thin calls, roughly tseet, with which the members of a pair keep in contact. The song is a short series of high, thin whistles and trills, mainly in the early morning.
Recording: José María Loaiza B. — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
19–20 cm, sturdy, with a black bill and a fairly long tail. The head is black, with a grey median crown stripe and a long grey supercilium. The throat is white, without a breast band. The back, wings and tail are olive-green; the breast and flanks are grey and the centre of the belly is whitish. The sexes are alike. Juveniles are duller and browner, with a less sharp head pattern and faint streaks on the underparts.
Confusion species
White-browed Brushfinch Arremon torquatus of south-eastern Peru and Bolivia has a white rather than grey supercilium. Black-headed Brushfinch Arremon atricapillus lives lower in Colombia and has at most faint grey head stripes. Chestnut-capped Brushfinch Arremon brunneinucha has a chestnut crown and a black breast band. Tanager Finch Oreothraupis arremonops has an orange-rufous body.
Habitat
Undergrowth of humid montane forest, cloud forest and upper montane forest, forest edges, bamboo and scrub, roughly between 1500 and 3500 m. It forages on and just above the ground among leaf litter for insects, other invertebrates and seeds, and sometimes joins mixed understorey flocks. The nest is a cup placed low in a shrub or in bamboo.
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 Andean ranges, but not in the Santa Marta or the Perijá. In Ecuador on both slopes of the Andes. In Peru in the Andes south to about Cuzco. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in western Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search along mountain roads through cloud forest, for example in the reserves on the western slope above Quito. Pairs come out to forage on the ground at forest edges and on road verges in the early morning.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species is widespread and also lives in secondary forest and scrub, although montane forest is being lost locally to clearance.
Scientific name
Arremon assimilis | (Boissonneau, 1840)
Boissonneau described the species in 1840 as Tanagra (Arremon Vieillot; Embernagra Lesson) assimilis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Arremon was introduced in 1816 by Vieillot. The genus name comes from Greek arrhēmōn, 'silent, without speech'. The species name is Latin for 'similar', after its resemblance to related brushfinches. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bogotá, Colombia.