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Sira Tanager | Stilpnia phillipsi
Siratangare | Tangara del Sira | Saíra-do-sira
The Sira Tanager is endemic to the Cerros del Sira, an isolated ridge east of the main Andean chain in central Peru. It was described only in the 1980s and is known only from the higher parts of this ridge, where it lives in the canopy of cloud forest.
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Voice
High, thin tseet calls and a dry chipping; otherwise little known.
No recording with a suitable Creative Commons licence is available for this species yet.
Identification
13–14 cm. The male has a black cap and is otherwise mainly silvery blue-grey, with black on the throat and centre of the breast. Wings and tail are blackish with blue edges. The female is greener, with a greyer head and no black cap. Juveniles resemble the female.
Confusion species
No other tanager with a black cap and a silvery blue body occurs in the Cerros del Sira. Black-capped Tanager Stilpnia heinei is very similar, but lives only much farther north, in Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. Blue-necked Tanager Stilpnia cyanicollis has a turquoise-blue head and a black body.
Habitat
Canopy and edges of cloud forest and stunted forest on the upper slopes and crest of the Cerros del Sira, roughly between 1300 and 2000 m. It eats small fruits and searches for insects, often in mixed flocks with other tanagers. Nothing is known about the nest.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Endemic to Peru, only in the Cerros del Sira on the border of Huánuco, Pasco and Ucayali. Does not occur in Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia or on the Galápagos.
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
The Cerros del Sira can only be reached on a hike of several days; the species is seen mainly by expeditions. Search mixed canopy flocks on the upper slopes.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The range is very small, but it lies largely in a remote, protected area (the El Sira Communal Reserve) and the forest there is largely intact.
Scientific name
Stilpnia phillipsi | (Graves & Weske, 1987)
Graves & Weske described the species in 1987 as Tangara phillipsi; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Stilpnia was introduced in 2016 by Burns, Unitt & Mason. The genus name comes from Greek stilpnos, 'glittering' or 'glistening'. The specific name honours Allan R. Phillips (1914–1996), an American ornithologist, for his work on the taxonomic relationships of Neotropical birds. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cerros del Sira, Huánuco, Peru.