All species › Passerines › Ovenbirds and woodcreepers › Lark-like Brushrunner
Lark-like Brushrunner | Coryphistera alaudina
Leeuwerikstruikloper | Espinero crestudo | Corredor-crestudo
The Lark-like Brushrunner is a streaked, crested ovenbird that walks in small groups over the ground of the dry Chaco. In posture and pattern it recalls a lark. It builds large nests of thorny twigs in trees. In the guide area it occurs only in south-eastern Bolivia.
Voice
High, dry chirping notes and rapid trills, often given by members of a group at the same time. When alarmed a sharp, repeated chip.
Recording: Dan Lane — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
16 cm, with a fairly short, slightly decurved bill, a pointed crest and a medium-length tail. The upperparts are greyish brown with black streaks. The ear coverts are rufous and the supercilium pale. The throat and underparts are pale buff, the breast streaked dark. The tail is rufous with dark central feathers. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Crested Hornero Furnarius cristatus also has a crest, but is unstreaked and sandy and usually occurs singly or in pairs. Brown Cacholote Pseudoseisura lophotes is much larger and plain rufous-brown, with a shaggy crest. Canasteros such as Short-billed Canastero Asthenes baeri lack a crest and keep more to shrubs.
Habitat
Open Chaco woodland and thorn scrub with bare ground, also pasture with scattered trees, mostly below 800 m. It forages on foot for insects and other invertebrates, often in groups of three to six birds. The nest is a large ball of thorny twigs with an entrance tube, high in a tree.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Absent from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the Galápagos. Bolivia: in the Chaco of the south-east, in southern Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca and Tarija. Outside the guide area in western Paraguay, northern and central Argentina and the far south of Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search open patches and sandy tracks in the Chaco woodland of south-eastern Bolivia, for example around Villamontes; groups walk over the ground and fly up into a tree together when disturbed. The large stick nests in the trees indicate their presence.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The Chaco is being rapidly cleared for farming and ranching, but the species tolerates a partly open landscape.
Scientific name
Coryphistera alaudina | Burmeister, 1860
Burmeister described the species in 1860 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. He introduced the genus Coryphistera in that same work. The genus name comes from Greek koruphistēr, 'tuft on the crown of the head', referring to the bird's erect crest. The species name comes from Latin alauda, 'lark', and means 'lark-like'. The specimen the first description was based on came from near Paraná, Entre Ríos, Argentina.