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Banded Wren | Thryophilus pleurostictus
Acaciawinterkoning | Chivirín barrado
The Banded Wren is a wren of dry forest and thorn scrub on the Pacific slope of Mexico and northern Central America. It is recognised by the white underparts with black bars on the flanks and lives in pairs in dense, often thorny scrub.
Voice
A varied, clear song of whistled and trilled phrases, often starting with a dry rattle; pairs often sing in duet. Call a dry, grating rattle.
Recording: Manuel Grosselet — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm. Upperparts greyish to warm brown, tail more rufous with black bars. White supercilium, cheeks streaked black and white. Throat and breast white, flanks and sides of the belly with bold black bars on a white to buff ground, lower belly buff-brown. Sexes alike.
Confusion species
Sinaloa Wren Thryophilus sinaloa (western Mexico) lacks black bars on the flanks and has a dark patch on the side of the neck. Rufous-and-white Wren Thryophilus rufalbus is bright rufous above and has unbarred flanks. Cabanis's Wren Cantorchilus modestus has plain buff flanks.
Habitat
Dry deciduous forest, thorn forest and thorn scrub, scrub along dry riverbeds and gallery forest, also rough pastures with shrubs; mainly in the lowlands and foothills. It forages low in vegetation for insects and spiders.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Pacific slope of southern Mexico, from the interior of the Balsas basin and western Mexico south-east through Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua to north-western Costa Rica. Does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Common in the dry forest of Guanacaste in Costa Rica, including Santa Rosa National Park. Listen for the rattling song from thorny scrub.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Fairly common in dry forest and scrub; tolerates a degree of disturbance.
Scientific name
Thryophilus pleurostictus | (Sclater, 1860)
Sclater described the species in 1860 as Thryothorus pleurostictus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Thryophilus was introduced in 1864 by Baird. Thryophilus is Greek, from thruon 'reed, rush' and philos 'lover': 'reed-lover'. pleurostictus is Greek, from pleura 'side, flank' and stiktos 'spotted', after the black-barred flanks. The specimen the first description was based on came from Gualán, Zacapa, Guatemala.