All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies › Rufous-browed Conebill
Rufous-browed Conebill | Conirostrum rufum
Roodbrauwspitssnavel | Picocono rufo | Figuinha-de-sobrancelha-ruiva
The Rufous-browed Conebill is a conebill of the uppermost forest belt and the páramo edge in the northern Andes, with grey-blue upperparts and a rufous face and underparts. In the guide area it occurs only in Colombia. Pairs and small groups search shrubs and small trees for insects.
Voice
High, thin tsit calls and a rapid, high twitter, often from dense shrubs.
Recording: Bernabe Lopez-Lanus — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
13 cm, with a fine, pointed bill. The upperparts are slate-grey to grey-blue, the wings and tail darker. The forehead, eyebrow, cheeks and throat are bright rufous, and the rest of the underparts rufous to cinnamon. The sexes are alike. Juveniles are duller, with a less sharply marked face.
Confusion species
Blue-backed Conebill Conirostrum sitticolor has a black head, throat and upper breast and a brighter blue back. Rusty Flowerpiercer Diglossa sittoides has a similar colour pattern, but no rufous face, and an upturned, hook-tipped bill.
Habitat
Elfin forest and scrub at the treeline, edges of upper montane forest and shrubby páramo with Espeletia, roughly between 2500 and 3800 m. It forages in pairs or small groups, often in mixed flocks, for insects in foliage and on flowering shrubs.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Only in Colombia: in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and in the Eastern Cordillera, south to the Bogotá area; there are also records from the Central Cordillera. Absent from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area only adjacent in western Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search forest edges and scrub at the treeline in the páramos around Bogotá, such as Chingaza, and on the higher slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The birds often sit in the tops of shrubs.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Locally fairly common; habitat at the treeline in the Eastern Cordillera is locally lost to farming and fires.
Scientific name
Conirostrum rufum | de Lafresnaye, 1843
De Lafresnaye described the species in 1843 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Conirostrum was introduced in 1838 by D'Orbigny, ACVMD & de Lafresnaye. The genus name combines Latin conus, 'cone', and rostrum, 'bill'. The species name is Latin rufus, 'rufous, red-brown'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bogotá, Colombia.