Vorstman's Guideto the birds of Mexico and Central America

All species › Passerines › Ovenbirds and woodcreepers

Ovenbirds and woodcreepers | Furnariidae

Ovenvogels en muisspechten | Horneros y trepatroncos

A large family of tropical American suboscines, with forty-four species in twenty-five genera in this guide, from dry forest to rainforest and cloud forest. The birds are mostly brown, rufous and cinnamon, often streaked or spotted, and the sexes look alike. Broadly they fall into two groups. The woodcreepers climb tree trunks like woodpeckers, supported by a tail with stiff, bare shaft tips, and use a straight or strongly curved bill to probe bark crevices, moss and epiphytes for insects and spiders; some follow army ant swarms to catch the animals fleeing ahead of them. The remaining species, such as leaftossers, foliage-gleaners, xenops and spinetails, find their food by tossing leaf litter, searching dead leaves or clambering through foliage. The voice consists of rattles, trills and shrill series. Nesting habits vary widely: woodcreepers nest in tree cavities on a layer of bark flakes, others dig tunnels in earth banks, and spinetails build large, enclosed stick nests with a tubular entrance. The eggs are white.

Native species 44 species

Species that occur here by nature: breeding birds, winter visitors and passage migrants. They are arranged by genus, in the sequence of the list.

Sclerurus 3 species

Glyphorynchus 1 species

Sittasomus 1 species

Deconychura 1 species

Dendrocincla 3 species

Dendrocolaptes 2 species

Xiphocolaptes 1 species

Xiphorhynchus 4 species

Dendroplex 1 species

Campylorhamphus 2 species

Lepidocolaptes 3 species

Xenops 2 species

Premnoplex 1 species

Margarornis 2 species

Anabacerthia 1 species

Syndactyla 1 species

Dendroma 1 species

Clibanornis 1 species

Thripadectes 1 species

Automolus 4 species

Pseudocolaptes 1 species

Lochmias 1 species

Xenerpestes 1 species

Cranioleuca 2 species

Synallaxis 3 species