Tawny-winged woodcreeper
The tawny-winged woodcreeper is a passerine bird in subfamily Dendrocolaptinae of the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is found in Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama.
Taxonomy and systematics
The tawny-winged woodcreeper has three subspecies, the nominate D. a. anabatina, D. a. typhla, and D. a. saturata.Some authors have merged saturata with the nominate but this treatment has not been widely accepted.
Description
The tawny-winged woodcreeper is long. Males of the nominate subspecies weigh and females. The species is a medium-sized member of its genus, with a straight bill, a short tail, and a ruffled nape. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a brown head with buffy supercilium and bare gray skin around the eye. Their crown, nape, and back are dark olive-brown and their uppertail coverts and tail are cinnamon-rufous to rufous-chestnut. Their wing coverts are dark olive-brown and their flight feathers tawny with dusky tips. Their throat is pale buff and their underparts light olive-brown that becomes cinnamon on the belly and undertail coverts. Their iris is yellowish brown to gray, their maxilla dark brown or black, their mandible gray or bluish, and their legs and feet dark blue-gray to blackish. Juveniles are similar to adults but with a duller throat, a wider supercilium, and sometimes a white eye. Subspecies D. a. typhla is paler than the nominate, especially on its underparts. D. a. saturata has darker and more olivaceous upperparts than the nominate and the centers of its flight feathers are duller.Distribution and habitat
The nominate subspecies of the tawny-winged woodcreeper is found along the Caribbean slope from southeastern Veracruz in southern Mexico south through Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras to eastern Nicaragua. D. a. typhla is found on the Yucatán Peninsula. D. a. saturata is found on the Pacific slope from Costa Rica's Gulf of Nicoya into Panama's Chiriquí Province.The tawny-winged woodcreeper primarily inhabits mature humid evergreen primary and secondary forest and to a lesser extent the forest edges and nearby semi-open landscapes. On the Yucatán Peninsula it also occurs in semi-deciduous forest and, in Costa Rica, mangroves. It tends to stay low to the ground. In elevation it mostly occurs below but ranges as high as in Mexico and northern Central America and to in Costa Rica.