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Piping Long-tailed Woodcreeper | Deconychura typica
Kleine langstaartmuisspecht | Trepatroncos colilargo pequeño
The Piping Long-tailed Woodcreeper is a slender, rather plain brown woodcreeper with a noticeably long tail and a thin, straight bill. It lives unobtrusively in the interior of humid forest and is noticed mainly by its high, whistled song. It was formerly combined with related forms in South America as a single species, Long-tailed Woodcreeper.
Voice
The song is a series of clear, high, piping whistles that fall slightly in pitch. Also short, sharp calls.
Recording: Sam Darmstadt — CC BY-NC 4.0 · Converted to mp3, mono, full length · iNaturalist
Identification
18–20 cm, much of it tail. Upperparts olive-brown, wings, rump and tail rufous. A narrow pale eyebrow; throat pale buff. Breast brown with fine pale buffy streaks that fade towards the belly. Bill fairly short, thin and straight. Male and female are alike.
Confusion species
Olivaceous Woodcreeper Sittasomus griseicapillus is smaller, with a greyish-olive head and underparts without streaks. Wedge-billed Woodcreeper Glyphorynchus spirurus is smaller and shorter-tailed, with a wedge-shaped bill. Plain-brown Woodcreeper Dendrocincla fuliginosa and Ruddy Woodcreeper Dendrocincla homochroa are larger and bulkier, with a heavier bill and no breast streaks.
Habitat
Interior of humid evergreen forest in the lowlands and especially the foothills. It climbs trunks in the lower and middle storeys and often joins mixed flocks. It nests in a tree cavity.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Local and scarce in eastern Honduras and in Nicaragua; further in Costa Rica and Panama. Outside the guide area in north-western South America.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Best found by listening in humid foothill forest for the high, piping song and by checking mixed flocks in the understorey.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Scarce and inconspicuous; tied to undisturbed forest and sensitive to fragmentation.
Scientific name
Deconychura typica | Cherrie, 1891
Cherrie described the species in 1891 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. He introduced the genus Deconychura in that same work. Deconychura is Greek, from deka 'ten', onux 'claw' and oura 'tail': the describer believed the tail had ten feathers with protruding, curved shaft tips. typica is Latin for 'typical': the species is the type species of the genus Deconychura. The specimen the first description was based on came from Pozo Azul de Pirrís, southwestern Costa Rica.