All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies › Masked Tanager
Masked Tanager | Stilpnia nigrocincta
Zwartborsttangare | Tangara pechinegra | Saíra-mascarada
The Masked Tanager is a tanager of the Amazonian lowlands, with a pale lavender-blue head, a black mask and a broad black breast band above a white belly. It lives in pairs or small groups in the canopy and at the edges of humid forest, often together with other tanagers.
Voice
High, thin tseet calls and a short, dry chipping; the song is a rapid series of high, thin notes.
Recording: Mauricio Cuellar Ramirez (@Birding.travel) — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
13 cm. Head and neck are pale blue to lavender-blue, with a black mask around bill and eye. Back, breast band and tail are black; shoulders and rump are blue, and the wings are black with blue edges. Belly and undertail coverts are white, the flanks blue. The sexes are almost alike. Juveniles are duller and greyer.
Confusion species
Golden-hooded Tanager Stilpnia larvata has a golden-buff hood and lives on the Pacific side of the Andes. Blue-necked Tanager Stilpnia cyanicollis has a turquoise-blue head and an all-black body without a white belly, and lives higher, in the foothills and on the slopes. Turquoise Tanager Tangara mexicana is dark blue with a pale yellow belly.
Habitat
Canopy and edges of humid lowland forest on terra firme and in várzea, secondary forest, clearings with scattered trees and gardens near villages, mainly below 1000 m. It eats small fruits, including those of Cecropia and Miconia, and searches the undersides of leaves for insects. The cup nest is placed 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
In Colombia east of the Andes in Amazonia. In Ecuador and Peru in the lowlands east of the Andes, up into the lower foothills. In Bolivia in the northern and central lowlands. Does not occur on the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in southern Venezuela, the Guianas and Amazonian Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
At forest edges, in clearings around lodges and from canopy towers in Amazonian Ecuador and Peru, look for mixed tanager flocks in the treetops.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Widespread and fairly common, also in secondary forest and semi-open terrain.
Scientific name
Stilpnia nigrocincta | (Bonaparte, 1838)
Bonaparte described the species in 1838 as Aglaia nigro-cincta; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Stilpnia was introduced in 2016 by Burns, Unitt & Mason. The genus name comes from Greek stilpnos, 'glittering' or 'glistening'. The specific name comes from Latin niger, 'black', and cinctus, 'girdled', referring to the black breast band. The specimen the first description was based on came from Northeastern Peru.