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White-headed Wren | Campylorhynchus albobrunneus
Witkopwinterkoning | Cucarachero cabeciblanco | Garrinchão-de-cabeça-branca
The White-headed Wren is a large, two-toned wren of the Chocó: the head and underparts are white, the back, wings and tail dark brown. It lives in noisy groups in the canopy of humid forest and forages a lot among epiphytes. In the guide area it occurs only in western Colombia.
Voice
A series of harsh, scratchy and grating notes, sung by both sexes, often by several birds of a group at once; call a harsh kahk.
Recording: Kent Livezey — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
18–19 cm, with a stout, slightly decurved bill and a fairly long tail. The head, neck and underparts are white, sometimes with a dingy or greyish wash on the flanks and belly. The back, wings and tail are dark chocolate brown, without markings; birds in Colombia are darker above than those in Panama. The sexes are alike; young birds are duller.
Confusion species
In the guide area no other wren has a white head with a plain dark brown back. Band-backed Wren Campylorhynchus zonatus has a back barred black, white and buff, a black-spotted breast and a cinnamon belly. Bicolored Wren Campylorhynchus griseus also has white underparts, but a dark brown crown with a white supercilium, and lives in dry, open country in the north.
Habitat
The canopy and middle storey of humid lowland and foothill forest, pristine and disturbed, also forest edges and older secondary forest with many epiphytes, from sea level to about 1500 m. Groups search for insects and spiders among bromeliads, moss and dead leaves. The nest is a ball with a side entrance, built among epiphytes.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia on the Pacific side, from the Panama border through the Chocó and along the western slope of the Western Andes southwards, almost to Ecuador. Not known with certainty from Ecuador. Absent from Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in central and eastern Panama.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Check forest edges and roads through humid forest in the Chocó for groups moving through the canopy with harsh calls and searching epiphytes.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Depends on humid forest, but tolerates disturbed forest and forest edges.
Scientific name
Campylorhynchus albobrunneus | (Lawrence, 1862)
Lawrence described the species in 1862 as Heleodytes albo-brunneus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Campylorhynchus was introduced in 1824 by Spix. The genus name comes from Greek kampulos, 'curved', and rhunkhos, 'bill'. The species name comes from Latin albus, 'white', and brunneus, 'brown', for the white and brown plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Atlantic slope along the Panama Railroad, Panama.