Small brown/olive bird, Andes, Venezuela (1 Viewer)

[iainp]

Ok, I give up. I can't find this one in Hilty's "The Birds of Venezuela." Help??

Here are some stills from the video, and here's the link to the film, showing it moving in the trees, and also calling (a single "cheep" sound, followed by another later) This was on the heavily forested Humboldt Trail, in The Andes, around 2500m up. Video is real time, then slowed to half speed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t22kBbnDCnA&feature=youtu.be

Many thanks.

 

[James Lowther]

how about oleaginous hemispingus??

http://ibc.lynxeds.com/photo/oleaginous-hemispingus-hemispingus-frontalis/bird-branch

not 100% sure as no venezuelan experience but it looks like a good match to me

cheers,
James

 

[Jim M.]

Bird in the video looks to be different from the bird in the stills, e.g. it has a longer thinner bill.

Regarding the bird in the stills, I think James is on the right track with Hemispingus, though looking at my Birds of Northern South America, I note that the Venezuela race of Superciliaried Hemispingus also has a yellow eyebrow.

 

[James Lowther]

yeah, bird in the video maybe a mountain wren??
james

 

[iainp]

Ah, so sorry to make things more complicated by posting the wrong video... I've just uploaded the video from which the stills were taken:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqLeGGZZh7k&feature=youtu.be

The oleaginous hemispingus looks spot on to me, but James, the bird I've been calling a mountain wren looks different to the one in the video. Here's a still from another video, which I was sure was a mountain wren because the song fitted the description, but this one looks much less brown than the other one, and the eyebrow looks much paler. Are they both mountain wrens? Many thanks for your help

 

[James Lowther]

Hi Iain,
i can't answer definitively as i'm not sure of the possible wren spp. in venezuela.

but to me both birds could be mountain wren.

if you pause the last image in the video linked above and compare with your photo of the bird coming out of the hole then structure and pattern wise they look very similar. colour differences probably down to the different lighting.

there are some real south american experts on BF, hopefully they will be along to confirm/confute my hunches!

cheers,
James

 

[iainp]

That's great, thanks. I hadn't realised how many difficult -to -ID birds there were in Venezuela! I'm still working on another 10 or so brown/grey birds at the moment.