Northern Long-tailed Woodcreeper

Overview

The whistling long-tailed woodcreeper, also known as the northern long-tailed woodcreeper, is a medium-sized bird in the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is a year-round resident found in the Guianas and northern Brazil, currently assessed as being of Least Concern by the IUCN.

Identification

• Length of 16 to 21 cm with a slim body, long wings and tail, and a slim, medium-length straight bill.
• Mostly olive-brown plumage with a darker, finely buff-streaked crown and nape; rufous-chestnut wings, tail, and undertail coverts.
• Whitish to rich buffy lores and supercilium; brown iris with a brownish upper bill and bluish lower mandible.
• Song is a high, distinctly descending, clear, rather plaintive 'pee-pue-tue-tuh---', most often heard in early morning and late afternoon.

Habitat

Found in the Guianas and northern Brazil north of the Amazon River and east of the Rio Negro, this species inhabits a variety of forested landscapes. It favours the interior of humid primary forest but also occurs at forest edges and in mature secondary forest, typically in terra firme and várzea up to 500 m in elevation.

Diet

The bird forages from the understory to the canopy, usually singly, in pairs, or in mixed-species flocks. It hitches up trunks and vines to pick or glean arthropods, though it occasionally makes short sallies to capture prey in the air, showing a preference for adult insects over larvae.

Did you know?

Although the bird is considered fairly common in much of its range, it appears highly sensitive to habitat modification and requires nearly continuous forest to persist.