All species › Tinamous › Tinamous › Tawny-breasted Tinamou
Tawny-breasted Tinamou | Nothocercus julius
Roodkoptinamoe | Tinamú leonado | Inhambu-de-peito-fulvo
The Tawny-breasted Tinamou is a large, warm rufous-brown tinamou of cloud forest in the northern and central Andes. The rufous head and white throat separate it from the other highland tinamous. It lives on the forest floor and is heard mainly at dawn and dusk.
Voice
A series of high, tremulous whistles, mainly at dawn and dusk. A loud whirr of wings when flushed.
Recording: David Edwards — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
35–38 cm, with a fairly large head, a short, stout bill and almost no tail. The crown, sides of the head and nape are rufous, and the throat is white. The upperparts are olive-brown and finely barred black, with small pale spots on the wing coverts. The breast and belly are warm tawny to rufous, the flanks finely barred dark. The legs are grey. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Highland Tinamou Nothocercus bonapartei has a blackish crown, a rufous throat and darker, barred underparts. Hooded Tinamou Nothocercus nigrocapillus has a grey head and throat and lives further south. Grey Tinamou Tinamus tao is larger and grey, and lives lower. Brown Tinamou Crypturellus obsoletus is smaller and plainer brown, without a white throat.
Habitat
The floor of humid montane and cloud forest, often with much bamboo (Chusquea), up to the treeline, roughly between 1800 and 3400 m. It feeds on the ground on fruit, seeds and invertebrates. The nest is on the ground, hidden among roots or dense vegetation.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia locally in the Andes. In Ecuador on both slopes of the Andes, mainly the eastern slope. In Peru on the eastern slope, south into the south of the country. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in the Andes of western Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Listen at dawn on quiet trails through cloud forest on the eastern slope of the Andes. Birds sometimes walk slowly across the trail, but quickly retreat into dense bamboo when disturbed.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Locally affected by clearance of cloud forest and by hunting.
Scientific name
Nothocercus julius | (Bonaparte, 1854)
Bonaparte described the species in 1854 as Tinamus julius; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Nothocercus was introduced in 1856 by Bonaparte. The genus name comes from Greek nothos, 'spurious', and kerkos, 'tail'; the tail is very short. Named after Jules Verreaux (1807–1873), French naturalist and natural-history dealer. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bogotá, Colombia.