Uniform Woodcreeper

Overview

The uniform woodcreeper (Hylexetastes uniformis) is a large, heavy-bodied bird belonging to the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is a year-round resident found in the Amazon Basin of southern Brazil and northeastern Bolivia.

Identification

• A large and heavy-bodied woodcreeper, 25 to 30 cm in length, with a short and massive wine-red to brownish bill.
• Adults have smoky brown to olive-brown upperparts contrasting with bright chestnut to rufous-chestnut wing coverts, flight feathers, rump, and tail.
• The breast is a warmer cinnamon-brown and the belly buffy brown, sometimes with indistinct fine barring, while legs and feet are green or olive.
• The song is a loud series of approximately six 'Weeah weeah - - weeh' notes, typically heard at dawn.

Habitat

Primarily inhabits terra firme, gallery, and seasonally flooded forests within the Amazon Basin south of the Amazon River. It favours the interior of mature primary forest but also occurs at its edges and in older secondary forest, mostly at low elevations up to 600 m.

Diet

The diet consists mostly of arthropods and includes small vertebrates such as frogs. It often joins mixed-species foraging flocks to glean prey from trunks and branches in the forest mid-level to subcanopy, and also follows army ant swarms to sally from low perches to the ground to capture disturbed prey.

Did you know?

The taxonomy of the uniform woodcreeper remains unsettled, with different authorities treating it as a species with two subspecies, a monotypic species, or as part of the red-billed woodcreeper complex.