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Pirre Warbler | Basileuterus ignotus
Pirrezanger | Reinita del Pirre
The Pirre Warbler is a warbler with a rufous crown, a pale eyebrow and a dark cheek that occurs only on a few isolated mountain tops in Darién, at the far eastern end of Panama and the adjoining part of Colombia. It is sometimes treated as a subspecies of the Black-cheeked Warbler.
Voice
Little described. The song resembles that of Black-cheeked Warbler: a fast series of high, thin, twittering notes. The call is a thin tsit.
Recording: Andrew Spencer — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm. Crown rufous, edged with black at the sides; a long, pale eyebrow above blackish lores and cheek. Upperparts olive-green, without wing bars. Underparts yellowish olive, paler and yellower on throat and belly, greener on the flanks. Male and female are alike.
Confusion species
No other warbler with this head pattern occurs within its small range. Tacarcuna Warbler Basileuterus tacarcunae lives in the same mountains, but usually lower on the slopes; it has a striped head with a pale central crown stripe and a black ear patch. Black-cheeked Warbler Basileuterus melanogenys is very similar, but has greyish-white underparts and lives only in Costa Rica and western Panama.
Habitat
Understorey and lower tree layer of cloud forest and elfin forest on the summits and upper slopes, roughly above 1200 m. It lives in pairs or small groups and joins mixed flocks.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Endemic to the highest parts of the mountains of Darién: Cerro Pirre, and Cerro Malí and Cerro Tacarcuna on the border of Panama and Colombia, with a small adjoining area in north-western Colombia. Resident.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Reachable only on a trek of several days in Darién National Park, from the former Cana field station to the cloud forests of Cerro Pirre; such trips are organised only with guides and depending on the security situation.
Conservation status
Vulnerable (VU). The range is very small and consists of a few isolated mountain tops. The forest there is largely intact and lies within Darién National Park, but because of the small area the species is sensitive to disturbance and climate change.
Scientific name
Basileuterus ignotus | Nelson, 1912
Nelson described the species in 1912 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Basileuterus was introduced in 1848 by Cabanis. Basileuterus is Greek, from basileuteros 'more kingly', after the coloured crown stripe recalling a little crown. ignotus is Latin for 'unknown', as the species was new to science when described in 1912. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cerro Pirre, Darién, Panama.