Tawny-crested Tanager

Overview

The tawny-crested tanager (Tachyphonus delatrii) is a species of bird in the family Thraupidae. It is distributed across the Caribbean slope of Central America and the northwestern Andes of South America.

Identification

• Males are glossy black with a short tawny to dark yellow crest, while females feature a grayish brown head and dark olive-brown upperparts.
• Both sexes possess a short, somewhat thin bill, reddish brown irises, and blackish legs.
• Males display a small, seldom-visible white patch on the bend of the wing and white underwing coverts.
• Calls include a high-pitched tzeeet! and a scratchy chit, often mixed with agitated chatter or described as a metallic tchit and a sibilant zeeet.

Habitat

Found from eastern Honduras south to Panama and into northwestern Colombia and Ecuador, this species inhabits tropical lowland and montane evergreen forests. It favours areas of low dense vegetation such as forest edges, overgrown secondary forest, and shrubby cut areas, typically occurring below 800 m but reaching up to 1,500 m in Colombia.

Diet

Although its diet has not been extensively studied, it is known to include insects. The bird typically forages in large flocks of its own species, occasionally joining mixed-species feeding flocks, and takes prey from foliage by pecking, lunging, short flutter-flights, and sometimes hanging downward.

Did you know?

An analysis of over 200 adult specimens revealed positive relationships between latitude and four morphological characters: wing length, tail length, bill length, and bill width.