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White-browed Brushfinch | Arremon torquatus
Witbrauwstruikgors | Cerquero cabecilistado | Tico-tico-de-sobrancelha-branca
The White-browed Brushfinch is the southernmost member of the group of stripe-headed brushfinches, from south-eastern Peru to Argentina. Since the former Stripe-headed Brushfinch was split, only this species still carries the scientific name Arremon torquatus. It lives in pairs close to the ground in the montane forest and scrub of the Yungas.
Voice
Very high, thin calls, roughly tseet, with which the members of a pair keep in contact. The song is a short series of high, thin whistles and trills, mainly in the early morning.
Recording: Rosendo Manuel Fraga — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
19 cm, sturdy, with a black bill and a fairly long tail. The head is black, with a grey median crown stripe and a long white supercilium. The throat is white, without a breast band. The back, wings and tail are olive-green; the breast and flanks are grey and the centre of the belly is whitish. The sexes are alike. Juveniles are duller and browner, with a less sharp head pattern.
Confusion species
Grey-browed Brushfinch Arremon assimilis, which lives further north in Peru, has a grey rather than white supercilium. Chestnut-capped Brushfinch Arremon brunneinucha has a chestnut crown and a black breast band. Bolivian Brushfinch Atlapetes rufinucha has a rufous crown and yellow underparts.
Habitat
Undergrowth of humid montane forest and cloud forest of the Yungas, forest edges, bamboo and scrub, in the south also drier woodland, roughly between 1000 and 3400 m. It forages on and just above the ground among leaf litter for insects, other invertebrates and seeds. The nest is a cup placed low in a shrub or in dense scrub.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Peru only in the south-east, mainly in Puno. In Bolivia along the eastern slope of the Andes, from La Paz through Cochabamba and Santa Cruz south to Chuquisaca and Tarija. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in north-western Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search along the roads through the Yungas of La Paz and Cochabamba, where pairs forage on the ground at forest edges and on road verges in the early morning. Listen for high calls from dense scrub.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species is fairly widespread and also lives in secondary forest and scrub.
Scientific name
Arremon torquatus | (d'Orbigny, ACVMD & de Lafresnaye, 1837)
D'Orbigny, ACVMD & de Lafresnaye described the species in 1837 as Embernagra torquata; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Arremon was introduced in 1816 by Vieillot. The genus name comes from Greek arrhēmōn, 'silent, without speech'. The species name is Latin for 'collared', after the black breast band. The specimen the first description was based on came from Carcuata, Yungas, Bolivia.