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Grey-tailed Piha | Snowornis subalaris
Grijsstaartpiha | Guardabosques coligrís | Cricrió-de-cauda-cinza
The Grey-tailed Piha is a medium-sized, olive-green cotinga of foothill forest and lower montane forest on the east slope of the Andes. It usually lives alone, from the understorey to the middle storey, and is detected mainly by its voice. The grey tail and belly separate it from the closely related Olivaceous Piha.
Voice
A loud, clear two-note whistle, the second note higher than the first, roughly chee-WEEE, repeated after long pauses. The female may give a softer, shorter call.
Recording: Jerome Fischer — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
23–24 cm, a slender bird with a fairly long tail and a straight, dark bill. The head and upperparts are olive-green, with a thin pale eye-ring and blackish lores; the male has a partly concealed black crest in the centre of the crown. The tail and uppertail coverts are ash-grey, and the wings greyish brown with olive edges. The throat is pale yellow, the breast yellowish olive, the belly grey and the undertail coverts whitish yellow. The female has little or no crest.
Confusion species
Olivaceous Piha Snowornis cryptolophus has an olive tail and olive, faintly streaked underparts without a grey belly, and usually lives higher. Screaming Piha Lipaugus vociferans is uniform grey and lives in the lowlands. Dusky Piha Lipaugus fuscocinereus is larger, entirely grey and lives much higher. Some large olive flycatchers have wing bars or a shorter tail.
Habitat
Humid foothill forest and lower montane forest, from the understorey to the middle storey, roughly between 600 and 1500 m. It feeds on fruit and arthropods, picked from a perch or taken in a brief hover; it sometimes catches insects in the air. 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 only on the east slope of the Andes in the extreme south-west, in Putumayo and Nariño. In Ecuador along the entire east slope. In Peru on the east slope, often on outlying ridges, patchily south to Madre de Dios. Not known from Bolivia. Absent from the Galápagos. Does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In foothill forest on the east slope in Ecuador and Peru, listen for the loud two-note whistle. The bird often sits still for long periods on a horizontal branch in the middle storey.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species is locally scarce and disappears where foothill forest is cleared.
Scientific name
Snowornis subalaris | (Sclater, 1861)
Sclater described the species in 1861 as Lipaugus subalaris; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Snowornis was introduced in 2001 by Prum. The genus name honours the British ornithologist David W. Snow (1924–2009), combined with Greek ornis, 'bird'. The species name comes from Latin sub, 'under', and alaris, 'of the wing', referring to the underside of the wing. The specimen the first description was based on came from Río Napo, Ecuador.