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Red-legged Tinamou | Crypturellus erythropus
Roodpoottinamoe | Tinamú patirrojo | Inhambu-de-perna-vermelha
The Red-legged Tinamou is a tinamou of dry and semi-humid forest in northern South America; in the guide area it occurs only in Colombia. It is named for its pink to red legs. Several isolated forms, including that of the Magdalena Valley, were formerly treated as separate species.
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Voice
A short series of two or three pure, plaintive whistles, repeated at intervals, mainly in the early morning and at dusk.
Recording: Bernabe Lopez-Lanus — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
28–32 cm, with a small head, a thin neck and almost no tail. The upperparts are brown to olive-brown; the female has distinct black-and-buff barring on the wings and lower back, the male weaker barring. The head and foreneck are rufous, the throat pale, the breast greyish to brown, the belly paler with barred flanks. The legs are pink to red. The forms differ in the tone of the crown and breast.
Confusion species
Grey-legged Tinamou Crypturellus duidae has grey legs and a warmer rufous breast and lives further south-east. Little Tinamou Crypturellus soui is smaller, without red legs or barring. Great Tinamou Tinamus major is much larger and olive-brown, with grey legs.
Habitat
Dry deciduous forest, gallery forest, forest edges and dense thickets, also older secondary forest, from sea level to about 1500 m. It walks on the ground searching for seeds, fruit and invertebrates. The nest is on the ground; the male incubates the eggs.
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 Caribbean lowlands and around the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, in the middle Magdalena Valley and in the eastern lowlands of the Llanos. Absent from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in Venezuela, the Guianas and northern Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Listen in the early morning in dry forest at the foot of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta or in gallery forest in the Llanos for the whistles. On quiet forest trails the bird sometimes walks slowly away over the forest floor.
Conservation status
Least Concern (LC). Locally reduced by clearance of dry forest and by hunting. The Magdalena Valley form (saltuarius) is very rare and known from few records.
Scientific name
Crypturellus erythropus | (Pelzeln, 1863)
Pelzeln described the species in 1863 as Tinamus erythropus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Crypturellus was introduced in 1914 by Brabourne, WWK-H & Chubb. The genus name comes from Greek kruptos, 'hidden', and oura, 'tail', with the Latin diminutive -ellus: 'little hidden tail'. The species name comes from Greek eruthros, 'red', and pous, 'foot', for the red legs. The specimen the first description was based on came from Brazil.