Pale-legged Hornero - Furnarius leucopus

Pale-legged Hornero (Furnarius leucopus)

Brazil

The Pale-legged Hornero is found throughout much of tropical Brazil and Peru except parts of central and eastern Amazonia. It is also found in Colombia and Venezuela near the Caribbean coast.

There are several subspecies with slightly different features. Photo 1 is presumably of F. l. assimilis found in south and east Brazil. Photo 2 is probably also of the same sub-species. It is bright rufous above with a long broad white supercilium, a white throat and cinnamon-buff underparts. The tail has no terminal black band.

It likes to be near water and is fairly common in a variety of open and semi-open habitats. Usually seen singly or in pairs they are often on the ground where picking at grass or flicking aside leaves looking for food.

It builds an oven nest similar to that of the Rufous Hornero though it tends to use dung rather than mud in the construction.

There are illustrations in Ridgely & Tudor, Volume 2, Plate 2; and Hilty & Brown, Plate 24.

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