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Red-winged Wood Rail | Aramides calopterus
Roodvleugelbosral | Rascón montés alirrojizo | Saracura-de-asa-vermelha
The Red-winged Wood Rail is a little-known wood rail of the western Amazon, with bright rufous neck sides and wing coverts. It lives along streams in the forest interior and is seldom seen. Only a few sound recordings of the species exist.
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Voice
Little known. Presumably loud series of notes at dusk, as in other wood rails.
Recording: Paul Coopmans — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
31–35 cm, with a yellow-green bill, a red iris and coral-red legs. The throat is white; the front of the face, breast and belly are dark grey. The rest of the face, the neck sides and the wing coverts are bright rufous. The back is olive-brown; the rump, tail and undertail coverts are black. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Grey-cowled Wood Rail Aramides cajaneus has a grey neck, a rufous breast and a black belly, and olive-brown wings; it lives more along open banks. Uniform Crake Amaurolimnas concolor is smaller and uniformly rufous-brown, without a grey breast or black rear.
Habitat
Forest along streams in terra firme forest, seasonally flooded igapó forest and swamp forest, in the lowlands and low foothills. It walks on the ground in the shade of the undergrowth; diet and nest are hardly described, but presumably resemble those of other wood rails.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Ecuador in the east, local. In Peru in the north and centre of the Amazonian lowlands. In Colombia at most in the extreme south; not definitely established. Not known from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in western Brazil (western Amazonas).
How and when to look
Walk quietly in the early morning along forest streams in eastern Ecuador and north-eastern Peru; birds sometimes walk across a forest trail or along the bank.
Conservation status
Least Concern, but the population is unknown and thought to be declining. The species is so little known that the data for a sound assessment are actually lacking.
Scientific name
Aramides calopterus | Sclater & Salvin, 1878
Sclater & Salvin described the species in 1878 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Aramides was introduced in 1845 by Pucheran. The genus name combines the genus name Aramus (Limpkin) with Greek -oidēs, 'resembling'. The species name comes from Greek kalos, 'fair', and pteron, 'wing', referring to the rufous wings. The specimen the first description was based on came from Sarayacu, Ecuador.