White-striped Woodcreeper

Overview

The white-striped woodcreeper (Lepidocolaptes leucogaster) is a species of bird in the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is endemic to Mexico and classified as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.

Identification

• A slim, medium-sized bird measuring 21.5 to 23.5 cm long with a long, slender, decurved bill.
• Pale face with white to buff-white ear coverts, supercilium, and eyering, marked by a blackish stripe behind the eye.
• Blackish to dark brown crown and nape with buffy to whitish spots that extend as streaks onto the back.
• White to creamy white throat with a blackish scaly breast, and underparts that are dusky gray with white streaks.
• Song described as a sputtering trill, transcribed as 'zzzzzzzzztztztztztzttt-t-t-bt-bt-bt', and a call like a short rough trill, 'tsisirr'.

Habitat

This species is found exclusively in Mexico, inhabiting humid montane forest, drier oak, pine-oak, and pine-fir forests, as well as lowland tropical deciduous and mixed coniferous forests. It prefers mature forest and typically ranges in elevation from 900 to 3,500 m, though it has been recorded between 400 and 4,000 m.

Diet

The diet consists mostly of arthropods, which the bird captures by flaking bark and probing into crevices. It forages at all levels of the forest, hitching in a spiral up trunks and branches, and is often seen singly, in pairs, or within mixed-species feeding flocks.

Did you know?

The species is considered fairly common to common in the middle elevations but is rare elsewhere, despite having an estimated population of at least 50,000 mature individuals that is believed to be decreasing.