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Plain-brown Woodcreeper | Dendrocincla fuliginosa
Grijswangmuisspecht | Trepatroncos pardo | Arapaçu-pardo
The Plain-brown Woodcreeper is a medium-sized, almost unmarked brown woodcreeper of humid lowland forest. It is a regular follower of army-ant swarms and catches the insects flushed ahead of the ants. Of the Dendrocincla woodcreepers it is the most widespread in the guide area.
Voice
The song is a long, rattling or whinnying series of notes that first swells and then fades away. The call is a nasal, sharp peeyk or squeeek, often heard at ant swarms.
Recording: Jaime Suárez — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
19–22 cm, with a straight, medium-length, blackish bill and a stiff tail. The whole plumage is plain olive-brown, without streaks or spots; the wings, rump and tail are rufous. The face is greyish, with a pale moustachial stripe and a narrow dark stripe below it. The throat is slightly paler than the breast. The sexes are alike; the female is smaller on average.
Confusion species
White-chinned Woodcreeper Dendrocincla merula has a clear white chin and throat, a greyer face without a moustachial stripe and pale eyes, and also follows army ants in Amazonia. Tyrannine Woodcreeper Dendrocincla tyrannina is larger, with fine pale streaks on the head and breast, and lives higher in the Andes. Ruddy Woodcreeper Dendrocincla homochroa is warmer rufous-brown overall and occurs only in northern Colombia. Long-tailed woodcreepers (Deconychura) are slimmer, with a longer tail and pale spots on the breast.
Habitat
The interior and edges of humid lowland and foothill forest, also várzea, gallery forest and older secondary forest, mostly below 1200 m, locally up to about 2000 m in northern Colombia. It follows army-ant swarms and catches insects, spiders and small lizards, clinging low on trunks. The nest is in a cavity in a trunk or a rotten stump.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Colombia: in the Pacific and Caribbean lowlands, in the Magdalena valley and east of the Andes. Ecuador: west and east of the Andes. Peru: in the north-west and in the Amazonian lowlands. Bolivia: in the lowlands of the north and centre. Absent from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area from Honduras to Venezuela, the Guianas, Trinidad and Amazonian Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Look at an army-ant swarm in the forest interior; the bird clings low on trunks above the front of the swarm. The nasal peeyk often gives it away before it is seen.
Conservation status
Not Evaluated in the current circumscription of the species; as a whole widespread and locally common. The species is sensitive to forest fragmentation and disappears where forest is cleared.
Scientific name
Dendrocincla fuliginosa | (Vieillot, 1818)
Vieillot described the species in 1818 as Dendrocopus fuliginosus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Dendrocincla was introduced in 1840 by Gray. The genus name comes from Ancient Greek dendron, 'tree', and kinklos, an unidentified tail-wagging bird, often rendered as 'wagtail'. The species name comes from Latin fuliginosus, 'sooty', for the dark brown plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cayenne, French Guiana.