Red-billed Woodcreeper

Overview

The red-billed woodcreeper (Hylexetastes perrotii) is a heavy-bodied bird belonging to the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is currently assessed as Least Concern by the IUCN Red List, though its taxonomy remains unsettled with some authors considering it part of a larger complex. The species is distributed across parts of South America, including Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela.

Identification

• Length of 25 to 30 cm with a shortish tail and a short, massive bill that is wine-red to brownish in adults.
• Plumage features a smoky brown to olive-brown head and back, contrasted with bright rufous to rufous-chestnut rump, wings, and tail with dusky primary tips.
• Distinctive white lores and a white 'moustache' extending under the eye, with olive-brown to buffy brown underparts.
• Song described as a loud, ringing series of 2–6 whistles that is almost disyllabic, often transcribed as 'kyuu-hee, kyuu-hee…' or 'hoooooreet, hoooooreet'.

Habitat

Found in the northeastern Amazon Basin, ranging from eastern Venezuela through the Guianas to northern Brazil north of the Amazon River. It primarily inhabits humid terra firme forest, favouring the interior of primary forest at low elevations but also occurring in gallery forest, várzea, and mature secondary forest.

Diet

Diet consists mostly of a wide variety of arthropods, supplemented by small vertebrates such as frogs and snakes. Foraging is typically solitary or in pairs, often following army ant swarms or joining mixed-species feeding flocks. It sallies from vertical perches, digging in rotten wood and termite nests when not attending to swarms.

Did you know?

The species is very sensitive to habitat modification and is probably uncommon to rare throughout its range, apparently present at most sites in low densities and on large, mutually exclusive territories.