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Tocuyo Sparrow | Arremonops tocuyensis
Tocuyogors | Cerquero de El Tocuyo | Tico-tico-de-tocuyo
The Tocuyo Sparrow is a small, pale Arremonops of dry scrub in north-western Venezuela and adjacent north-eastern Colombia. It is named after El Tocuyo in the Venezuelan state of Lara, where the species was described. It has a small range and lives hidden in thorn scrub.
Voice
The song is a series of clear notes that speeds up, similar to that of Black-striped Sparrow, but higher and weaker. The call is a short chip.
Recording: Iván Lau — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm, with a conical, dark bill. The head is greyish, with brown lateral crown stripes and a brown eyestripe. The upperparts are pale olive-brown. The underparts are whitish, with a greyish breast and buff flanks. There is yellow at the bend of the wing. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Black-striped Sparrow Arremonops conirostris is clearly larger, with black head stripes, a greyer head and a greener back, and lives mainly in more humid scrub and forest edge. Young Black-striped Sparrows also have browner head stripes; then check size and the green back.
Habitat
Dry thorn scrub, cactus scrub and low dry forest with an open understorey, mainly in the lowlands below 1000 m. It feeds on the ground on seeds and insects. The nest is probably, as in related species, a domed structure low in a shrub.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia only in the north-east, in the arid lowlands of La Guajira. Absent from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in arid north-western Venezuela, in Zulia, Falcón and Lara.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search the thorn scrub of La Guajira in the early morning, when the birds sing; outside the singing period they keep mainly to the ground under shrubs.
Conservation status
Least Concern, but the range is small. Dry scrub is locally cleared and grazed by goats.
Scientific name
Arremonops tocuyensis | Todd, 1912
Todd described the species in 1912 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Arremonops was introduced in 1896 by Ridgway. The genus name combines the genus Arremon with Greek ōps, 'appearance': 'resembling Arremon'. The species name refers to Tocuyo (El Tocuyo) in Lara state, Venezuela. The specimen the first description was based on came from El Tocuyo, Lara, Venezuela.