Pale-legged Hornero

Overview

The pale-legged hornero, Furnarius leucopus, is a medium-sized bird in the ovenbird family Furnariidae found across parts of South America. Classified as Least Concern by the IUCN, it is a year-round resident that benefits from moderate anthropogenic habitat alteration.

Identification

• Measures 15 to 18 cm in length and weighs 37 to 49 g, featuring a long, nearly straight bill.
• Adults display a dark rufescent brown crown, bright orange rufous back, and chestnut tail, with a wide whitish supercilium and tawny-rufous malar area.
• Legs and feet are pale pinkish, pearly gray, or whitish, while the maxilla is dusky horn at the base with a paler culmen and tip.
• Song consists of a long series of loud, explosive, piercing, staccato notes that decelerate and descend in pitch, rendered as 'PIPIPI'PI'pi'pi-pi-pi-pi-pi pee pee pu'.

Habitat

Found in Bolivia, Brazil, Guyana, and Peru, this species inhabits a wide variety of semi-open to open landscapes, including gallery forest, secondary forest edges, and agricultural areas. It favours humid locations near water and typically occurs below 1,100 m, though it can reach 1,700 m in Peru.

Diet

The diet consists mostly of arthropods and other small invertebrates such as snails, with rare records of eating toads. Foraging is conducted singly or in pairs by walking on the ground and turning over leaves to glean prey.

Did you know?

Despite being a relatively abundant and conspicuous species, its breeding biology is surprisingly poorly known. Both members of a pair construct clay and dung nests, which can be found on tree branches or even on horizontal structures like utility poles.