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Buff-breasted Wren | Cantorchilus leucotis
Witoorwinterkoning | Cucarachero pechihabano
The Buff-breasted Wren is a brown Cantorchilus wren with a white supercilium, black-and-white streaked cheeks and buff underparts. In the guide area it occurs only in central and eastern Panama; beyond that it lives over much of northern South America.
Voice
Pairs sing duets of loud, clear whistled phrases repeated in quick succession. Also dry, ticking calls.
Recording: Robson Silva e Silva — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm. Upperparts warm brown, wings and tail with narrow black bars. Long white supercilium, cheeks white with black streaks. Throat whitish, breast and belly plain buff to warm tawny-buff, flanks slightly darker. Sexes alike.
Confusion species
Isthmian Wren Cantorchilus elutus has a white throat and breast and only buff flanks. Bay Wren Cantorchilus nigricapillus has a black head and a chestnut body. Black-bellied Wren Pheugopedius fasciatoventris has a white breast and a blackish belly.
Habitat
Dense scrub and thickets along rivers, lakes and marshes, flooded and gallery forest, forest edges and secondary forest, mainly in the lowlands. 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
Central and eastern Panama, mainly from the Canal area eastwards. Outside the guide area in northern and central South America, into Amazonia.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Common around Gamboa in Panama, including along Pipeline Road (Camino del Oleoducto) and the banks of the Chagres River.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common and widespread; tolerates secondary growth.
Scientific name
Cantorchilus leucotis | (de Lafresnaye, 1845)
De Lafresnaye described the species in 1845 as Thryothorus leucotis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Cantorchilus was introduced in 2006 by Mann, Barker, Graves, Dingess-Mann & Slater. Cantorchilus combines Latin cantus 'song' with Greek orkhilos 'wren': 'song wren'. leucotis is Greek, from leukos 'white' and ous, ōtos 'ear', after the white, black-streaked ear-coverts. The specimen the first description was based on came from Honda, Río Magdalena, Tolima, Colombia.