All species › Passerines › New World blackbirds, troupials and allies › White-browed Meadowlark
White-browed Meadowlark | Leistes superciliaris
Witbrauwtroepiaal | Pecho colorado | Polícia-inglesa-do-sul
The White-browed Meadowlark is the southern counterpart of the Red-breasted Meadowlark, a small blackbird of grassland and marshes in southern South America. The male is black with a red throat and breast and a white eyebrow behind the eye. In the guide area it lives in the lowlands of eastern Bolivia.
Voice
The male sings in a display flight, rising and then descending with spread wings: a few short notes followed by a buzzy trill. The call is a dry chek.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
17–18 cm, with a pointed bill and a short tail. The breeding male is black, with a scarlet throat and breast, a red bend of the wing and a narrow white eyebrow behind the eye. Outside the breeding season males have brown feather edges, which make them look streaked. The female is buffy with black streaks on the head and upperparts, a pale eyebrow and crown stripe, and pale buff underparts, sometimes with a pinkish wash on the belly. Juveniles resemble the female.
Confusion species
Male Red-breasted Meadowlark Leistes militaris lacks the white eyebrow; females of the two species are very similar. Pampas Meadowlark Leistes defilippii, outside the guide area, is larger, with a longer bill and brown, streaked upperparts. Female Bobolinks Dolichonyx oryzivorus have a short, conical bill.
Habitat
Wet grassland, marsh edges, savannas, pastures and fields with tall grass in the lowlands. Forages on the ground for insects and seeds. The nest is a grass cup on the ground in a grass tussock.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Bolivia in the savannas and grasslands of the eastern and southern lowlands. In Peru and the western Amazon at most a few records of wanderers. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in southern and central Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and northern and central Argentina; the southernmost birds move north in the austral winter.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Look in wet grassland and marsh edges in eastern Bolivia for singing males above the grass, especially in the rainy season.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species benefits locally from deforestation but loses ground elsewhere to intensive agriculture.
Scientific name
Leistes superciliaris | (Bonaparte, 1850) (GBIF: Sturnella superciliaris)
Bonaparte described the species in 1850 as Trupialis superciliaris; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Leistes was introduced in 1825 by Vigors. The genus name comes from Greek lēistēs, 'robber' or 'plunderer'. The species name comes from Latin supercilium, 'eyebrow', for the white supercilium. The specimen the first description was based on came from Mato Grosso, Brazil.