All species › Passerines › New World blackbirds, troupials and allies › Olive Oropendola
Olive Oropendola | Psarocolius bifasciatus
Olijforopendola | Oropéndola oliva | Japuaçu
The Olive Oropendola is the largest oropendola of the guide area. With its olive-yellow head and breast, chestnut back and black bill with an orange tip it is a characteristic bird of the Amazonian rainforest canopy. Birds in the guide area belong to the form yuracares, sometimes treated as a separate species.
Voice
The display song is a loud, deep, liquid gurgle ending in a gulping note, given with a deep bow. The call is a deep kok or a harsh kak.
Recording: Dante Buzzetti — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
42–52 cm; the male is much larger than the female. The head, neck and breast are olive-yellow to olive-green; the back, wings, belly and rump chestnut. The tail is yellow with dark central feathers. The bill is black with an orange tip, and a bare cheek patch is pink. The eye is dark. Juveniles are duller, with a smaller cheek patch.
Confusion species
Green Oropendola Psarocolius viridis is smaller and mostly olive-green, with a pale bill with an orange-red tip and a pale blue eye. Russet-backed Oropendola Psarocolius angustifrons is smaller and duller olive-brown, without a bare cheek patch. Casqued Cacique Cacicus oseryi is much smaller, with a yellow bill with a broad frontal shield.
Habitat
Canopy and edges of tall terra firme and várzea rainforest, also along rivers and in semi-open country with tall trees, mostly below 700 m, locally higher in the foothills. It eats fruit, nectar and large insects. It breeds in colonies of long, hanging woven nests in isolated trees, often together with caciques.
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 Amazonian lowlands of the south-east. In Ecuador in the eastern lowlands. In Peru throughout the Amazonian lowlands. In Bolivia in the lowlands of the north and centre. Absent from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in Brazilian Amazonia.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Along large rivers and from canopy towers; colonies are often in tall trees on riverbanks, and in the morning and late afternoon the birds fly over the water calling loudly.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species has a large range, but depends on tall forest and is hunted locally.
Scientific name
Psarocolius bifasciatus | (Spix, 1824)
Spix described the species in 1824 as Cassicus bifasciatus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Psarocolius was introduced in 1827 by Wagler. The genus name combines Greek psar, 'starling', with koloios, 'jackdaw'. The species name comes from Latin bi-, 'two', and fasciatus, 'banded': two-banded. The specimen the first description was based on came from Belém, Pará, Brazil.