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Grey-winged Trumpeter | Psophia crepitans
Grijsvleugeltrompetvogel | Trompetero aligrís | Jacamim-de-costas-cinzentas
The Grey-winged Trumpeter is a hunched, long-legged ground bird of the Amazonian rainforest north of the Amazon and the Marañón. Groups walk quietly over the forest floor and often follow monkeys to pick up fallen fruit. They are mainly detected by their deep, rumbling ‘trumpeting’.
Voice
A deep, ventriloquial, rumbling hum of notes that speed up rapidly and then slow down again, often at night or at dusk. When alarmed also loud, shrill cries and a cackling alarm.
Recording: Richard E. Webster — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
45–52 cm, with a small head, a long neck, a hunched back and long legs. The plumage is mostly velvety black, with a purple, green and bronze glossy patch on the lower neck and breast. A large ash-grey patch lies on the lower back, formed by the long inner secondaries, which drape over the back like a cape. The bill is short and greenish to yellowish, the legs greenish to grey. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Pale-winged Trumpeter Psophia leucoptera, south of the Amazon and the Marañón in Peru and Bolivia, has a white rather than grey back patch; the two species do not occur together and are separated by the large rivers. Curassows such as Razor-billed Curassow Mitu tuberosum are larger, with a heavy red bill and a chestnut or white belly.
Habitat
Tall humid terra firme rainforest in the lowlands, also seasonally flooded forest along rivers. Groups of a few to more than ten birds search the forest floor for fallen fruit, insects and other small animals. Roosts high in trees. Nests in a tree cavity; the whole group helps to raise the young.
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 eastern lowlands, in the Amazon and Orinoco basins. In Ecuador in the north-eastern Amazonian lowlands. In Peru only in the north-east, north of the Amazon and the Marañón. Absent from Bolivia. Outside the guide area in southern Venezuela, the Guianas and Brazilian Amazonia north of the Amazon.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Groups slip away quietly at the slightest disturbance; the best chance is on quiet trails in large, little-hunted forest, early in the morning. Hearing the deep hum at night or at first light means a group is nearby.
Conservation status
Disappears quickly where hunted and is therefore often absent near villages and roads. Depends on large, unbroken forest and suffers from deforestation in Amazonia.
Scientific name
Psophia crepitans | Linnaeus, 1758
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. He introduced the genus Psophia in that same work. The genus name comes from Greek psophos, 'noise', after the loud calls of trumpeters. The species name is Latin crepitans, 'rattling, creaking', after the call. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cayenne, French Guiana.