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Cinnamon Becard | Pachyramphus cinnamomeus
Kaneelbekarde | Cabezón canelo
The Cinnamon Becard is a small, entirely cinnamon-coloured Pachyramphus becard of humid lowland forest. The sexes are alike: rufous above and paler cinnamon below, with a pale line above the lores. It often sits fairly high at forest edges and in clearings. In the guide area it lives from south-eastern Mexico to Panama.
Voice
A clear, rather plaintive series of whistled notes in quick succession, falling slightly in pitch, often introduced by a longer first note.
Recording: Patricio Mena Valenzuela — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
14–15 cm. Stocky, with a fairly large, rounded head and a short, broad, dark bill. Upperparts bright rufous to cinnamon, crown slightly darker. Underparts paler, ochre cinnamon, palest on the throat. A narrow pale line from the base of the bill to above the eye, with dark lores below it. Wings and tail rufous, flight feathers slightly darker. Sexes alike.
Confusion species
The female One-colored Becard Pachyramphus homochrous (eastern Panama) is similarly rufous but larger and lacks the pale supraloral line. The female Rose-throated Becard Pachyramphus aglaiae is larger, with a grey or dark cap and a pale collar. The female Cinereous Becard Pachyramphus rufus (Panama) is much paler, almost white, below. Mourners of the genera Rhytipterna and Laniocera and Rufous Piha Lipaugus unirufus are larger and live more in the forest interior.
Habitat
Edges and clearings of humid evergreen lowland and foothill forest, second growth, riverine forest and shaded plantations, up to about 1200 m. It eats insects and small fruit, often snatched from leaves in flight. The large, globular nest with a side entrance hangs high from a branch.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Caribbean slope of south-eastern Mexico (southern Veracruz, Tabasco, northern Oaxaca and Chiapas) through Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua to Costa Rica; in Panama on both slopes. Outside the guide area in north-western South America, from Colombia and Venezuela to western Ecuador.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Common along forest edges at La Selva in Costa Rica and along Pipeline Road (Camino del Oleoducto) in Panama. The falling whistled series is often the first sign; the bird then sits upright on an exposed branch.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common in the humid lowlands and tolerant of forest edges and second growth.
Scientific name
Pachyramphus cinnamomeus | Lawrence, 1861
Lawrence described the species in 1861 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Pachyramphus was introduced in 1840 by Gray. Pachyramphus is Greek, from pakhus 'thick' and rhamphos 'bill', after the stout, broad bill. cinnamomeus is Latin for 'cinnamon-coloured', after the cinnamon-brown plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Lion Hill, former Panama Canal Zone, Panama.