- Lepidocolaptes falcinellus
Identification
17 - 20cm. A medium-sized woodcreeper with a relatively long, decurved bill.
- Creamy white lores, face and bold supercilium
- Blackish mottling on face
- Dusky to dull black boldly spotted crown and nape with rich buff
- Olive-brown to cinnamon-brown back and wing-coverts, contrasting sharply to spotted crown and nape
- Rufous-chestnut rump and tail
- Whitish troat
- Olive underparts, extensively and broadly streaked buff, each streak dark edged producing a scaly pattern
Females have a slightly longer bill than males.
Similar species
Scaled Woodcreeper has a brownish mantle and nape with little or no streaks.
Distribution
Found in southern Brazil (from northern Sao Paulo) south to Rio Grande do Sul, adjacent southeast Paraguay, northeast Argentina and northeast Uruguay.
Fairly common in parts of its range, uncommon in others.
Taxonomy
This is a monotypic species which in the past has been treated as a subspecies of Scaled Woodcreeper.
Habitat
Humid Atlantic Forest from lowlands up to mountains. In western part of range also in drier Planalto forest. Up to 1600m, sometimes up to 2200m.
Behaviour
Seen singly or in pairs, often in mixed-species flocks.
Forages along trunks and branches in mid-level of forest up to canopy, rarely in understorey.
Diet presumably arthropods.
Nests in a natural tree hole but cover the bottom with pieces of bark. Lays 3 white eggs; incubation of about 15 days start when the last egg is laid, and the two adults both incubate with seemingly 100% attendance. Hatchlings are in the nest for 18-19 days, where they are fed exclusively arthropods, mainly insects. Fecal sacs are probably eaten by the adults from early hatchlings, but from seventh day the adults bring fecal sacs out from the nest.
A resident species.
References
- Clements, JF. 2010. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2010. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019. Spreadsheet available at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/Clements%206.5.xls/view
- Dickinson, EC, ed. 2003. The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World. 3rd ed., with updates to October 2008 (Corrigenda 8). Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0691117010
- Gill, F and D Donsker (Eds). 2010. IOC World Bird Names (version 2.7). Available at http://www.worldbirdnames.org/.
- Del Hoyo, J, A Elliot, and D Christie, eds. 2003. Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 8: Broadbills to Tapaculos. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. ISBN 978-8487334504
- Bodrati & Cockle 2011. Nesting of the Scalloped Woodcreeper (Lepidocolaptes falcinellus). Ornithologia Neotropical 22:195-206
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Scalloped Woodcreeper. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 3 May 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Scalloped_Woodcreeper
