All species › Passerines › Gnatwrens and gnatcatchers › Tawny-faced Gnatwren
Tawny-faced Gnatwren | Microbates cinereiventris
Grijsbuikmuggensluiper | Soterillo caricastaño | Bico-assovelado-de-face-canela
Tawny-faced Gnatwren is a small, compact bird with a long bill, a stubby, often cocked tail and a rufous face. It lives close to the ground in the undergrowth of humid forest, especially in ravines and on slopes. In the guide area it lives both on the Pacific side and at the foot of the eastern slope of the Andes.
Voice
The song is a high, thin, drawn-out whistle, peeeee, repeated at intervals, sometimes slightly descending. Calls include a nasal, harsh chatter and dry ticking notes.
Recording: Daan van der Hoeven — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
10 cm, with a long, straight bill and a very short tail. The upperparts are dark olive-brown. The face and sides of the neck are bright rufous to tawny, with a narrow black line behind the eye. The throat is white, with a black patch or fine black streaks at its lower edge. Breast and belly are grey, the flanks olive-grey. The legs are long and greyish. The sexes are alike; juveniles are duller, with a less boldly marked throat.
Confusion species
Collared Gnatwren Microbates collaris has a white face with black stripes, white underparts with a black breast band, and lives in the Amazonian lowlands. Trilling Gnatwren Ramphocaenus melanurus has a long, narrow, white-tipped tail and pale buffy underparts and more often sits higher in vine tangles. Wrens such as White-breasted Wood Wren Henicorhina leucosticta have a shorter bill and a black-and-white striped head.
Habitat
Dense undergrowth of humid lowland and foothill forest, especially in ravines, along streams and on steep slopes, also in old secondary forest; from sea level to about 1200 m, locally higher. It forages in pairs for insects and spiders low in the undergrowth and on the ground, with the tail cocked. The nest is a cup low in a shrub or among leaves.
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 lowlands and foothills of the Pacific side, in the middle Magdalena Valley and at the foot of the eastern slope. In Ecuador in the north-west and at the foot of the eastern slope. In Peru at the foot of the eastern slope, south into the south of the country. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area from Nicaragua to Panama and in western Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search along trails that run through forested ravines and along streams in the foothills on either side of the Andes. The bird stays close to the ground; the high whistle is often the first sign.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Loss of lowland and foothill forest, especially in western Ecuador and the Magdalena Valley, has strongly reduced numbers locally.
Scientific name
Microbates cinereiventris | (Sclater, 1855)
Sclater described the species in 1855 as Ramphocaenus cinereiventris; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Microbates was introduced in 1873 by Sclater & Salvin. The genus name comes from Greek mikros, 'small', and batēs, 'walker', from bainō, 'to tread'. The species name comes from Latin cinereus, 'ash-grey', and venter, 'belly': 'grey-bellied'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca, Colombia.