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Yellow-lored Tanager | Chlorothraupis frenata
Geelteugeltangare | Tangara embridada | Tiê-de-loro-amarelo
The Yellow-lored Tanager is a stocky, olive-green cardinal of the forest undergrowth in the foothills of the eastern slope of the Andes, from Colombia to Bolivia. It was long included in Carmiol's Tanager and is now treated as a separate species. Noisy groups often form the core of mixed understory flocks.
Voice
Noisy. Groups give a harsh, repeated chatter and sharp calls; at dawn the male sings a fast series of clear, varied phrases.
Recording: Roberto Herrera Gonzales — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
17 cm, stocky, with a stout, dark bill. Almost uniformly dull olive-green, slightly paler and yellower below, with a yellowish throat and a small yellow spot on the lores. The sexes are similar; in the female the throat and lores are often somewhat yellower. Young birds are duller.
Confusion species
Lemon-spectacled Tanager Chlorothraupis olivacea and Ochre-breasted Tanager Chlorothraupis stolzmanni are very similar, but live west of the Andes. Female Flame-crested Tanagers Loriotus cristatus are smaller, warmer ochre-brown below and have a slimmer bill. Female Summer Tanager Piranga rubra is yellower, with a pale bill, and lives higher in the trees.
Habitat
Undergrowth and mid-levels of humid forest in the foothills and on the lower slopes, roughly between 400 and 1400 m, also at forest edges and in older secondary forest. It lives in groups that travel with mixed flocks. It eats insects and fruit. The nest is a cup low in the vegetation.
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 eastern slope of the Andes in the south. In Ecuador and Peru along the entire eastern slope of the Andes in the foothills. In Bolivia in the foothills of the Yungas. Absent west of the Andes and from the Galápagos. Does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In foothill forest on the eastern slope, listen for the harsh chatter of a group in the undergrowth; mixed flocks in the lower forest levels often travel with this species.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species depends on forest and suffers locally from deforestation in the foothills.
Scientific name
Chlorothraupis frenata | Berlepsch, 1907
Berlepsch described the species in 1907 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Chlorothraupis was introduced in 1883 by Salvin & Godman. The genus name comes from Greek khlōros, 'green', and thraupis, an unidentified small bird mentioned by Aristotle, used for tanagers. The species name is Latin frenatus, 'bridled', after the coloured lores. The specimen the first description was based on came from Marcapata, Cusco, Peru.