July 2001
The conebills are small tanagers looking a bit like warblers and with sharply pointed bills. There are two groups of conebills: the Andean group and the lowland group comprising 4 species all generally coloured blue-grey.
On the river islands they occur with the very similar Pearly-breasted Conebill (Conirostrum margaritae) which we also saw on this trip but not, unfortunately, well enough to photograph.
The principal differences between the two are the reddish iris of the Bicoloured as opposed to the pale tan iris of the Pearly-breasted and the lack of a buffy tinge on the pale pearly grey underparts of the Pearly-breasted Conebill.
There are illustrations in Ridgely & Tudor, Volume 1, Plate 11; Hilty & Brown, Plate 47; and Ridgely & Greenfield, Plate 84.
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