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Ruddy Woodcreeper | Dendrocincla homochroa
Rosse muisspecht | Trepatroncos rojizo
The Ruddy Woodcreeper is a medium-sized, almost uniformly rufous woodcreeper without streaks or barring. It regularly follows army-ant swarms, catching insects and other invertebrates flushed by the ants. Away from ant swarms it is inconspicuous.
Voice
A fast, dry, somewhat nasal rattle, and a sharp, nasal call. Often noisy at ant swarms.
Recording: William Adsett — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
18–20 cm. Almost entirely warm rufous, brightest on the crown, wings and tail; head somewhat greyer around the lores and eye. Throat slightly paler. No streaks, spots or bars. Bill straight and fairly stout, horn-brown. Male and female are alike.
Confusion species
Tawny-winged Woodcreeper Dendrocincla anabatina has an olive-brown body with contrasting bright cinnamon flight feathers and a pale throat. Plain-brown Woodcreeper Dendrocincla fuliginosa (Honduras to Panama) is duller olive-brown, with a greyish cheek and a dark malar stripe. Ruddy Foliage-gleaner Clibanornis rubiginosus is also rufous but does not climb trunks and has a shorter, less pointed bill.
Habitat
Humid and drier lowland and foothill forest, also seasonal forest on the Yucatán Peninsula and dry forest on the Pacific slope, mature secondary forest and forest edges. It keeps mainly to the lower storeys and likes to cling low on a trunk at an army-ant swarm. It nests in a tree cavity.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
From southern Mexico (including Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas and the Yucatán Peninsula) through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica to Panama. Outside the guide area in northern Colombia and north-western Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
The best chance is at an army-ant swarm, where it often forages together with antbirds and other woodcreepers; regularly seen at Tikal in Guatemala.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Locally fairly common, but dependent on forest with army ants and therefore sensitive to fragmentation.
Scientific name
Dendrocincla homochroa | (Sclater, 1860)
Sclater described the species in 1860 as Dendromanes homochrous; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Dendrocincla was introduced in 1840 by Gray. Dendrocincla is Greek, from dendron 'tree' and kinklos, an unidentified bird mentioned by Aristotle and later linked with wagtails. homochroa is Greek, from homokhroos 'uniform in colour', after the plain rufous-brown plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Teotalcingo, Oaxaca, Mexico.