The white-faced nunbird (''Hapaloptila castanea'') is a species of

near-passerine Near passerines and higher land-bird assemblage are terms of traditional, pre-cladistic taxonomy that have often been given to tree-dwelling birds or those most often believed to be related to the true passerines (order Passeriformes) owing to mor ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

in the family

Bucconidae The puffbirds and their relatives in the near passerine family Bucconidae are tropical tree-dwelling insectivorous birds that are found from South America up to Mexico. Together with their closest relatives, the jacamars, they form a divergent li ...

, the puffbirds, nunlets, and nunbirds. It is found in

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...

, and

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The white-faced nunbird is the only member of its genus and has no subspecies. It is not a "true" nunbird (genus ''Monasa'') and is sometimes called the white-face puffbird.Rasmussen, P. C., N. Collar, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). White-faced Nunbird (''Hapaloptila castanea''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.whfnun2.01 retrieved November 11, 2021

Description

The white-faced nunbird is long and weighs . It has a large white patch above the bill with a narrow black border at its top. The crown is gray-brown, the mantle and sides of the face dark brown, and the rest of the upperparts including wings and tail an even darker brown. The chin and throat are white and the rest of the underparts bright chestnut. The bill is black, the eye red, and the legs and feet gray. The sexes are essentially the same, with the female perhaps having paler underparts.

Distribution and habitat

The white-faced nunbird is found on the east slope of the

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

from western Colombia through eastern Ecuador into northwestern and central Peru. It inhabits the interior and edges of humid to wet forest and

cloudforest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud c ...

, often on steep slopes and in ravines. It is usually seen from the midstory to the subcanopy. In Colombia and Ecuador it typically ranges from of elevation but has been recorded as low as . In Peru it is found only between .

Behavior

Feeding

The white-faced nunbird mostly forages in the canopy though it is active at all levels. Its diet is primarily insects and other

arthropod Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...

s but also includes some small vertebrates. It occasionally joins

mixed-species foraging flock A mixed-species feeding flock, also termed a mixed-species foraging flock, mixed hunting party or informally bird wave, is a flock of usually insectivorous birds of different species that join each other and move together while foraging. These ar ...

Breeding

The white-faced nunbird's breeding season has not been fully defined but it includes April and May. One nest has been described. It was a leaf-lined chamber at the end of a long tunnel in an earthen bank. The clutch size was two eggs. Both members of the pair dug the burrow, incubated the eggs, and fed the young.

Vocalization

The white-faced nunbird's song is "a series of upward- or downward-inflected (sometimes level) single hoots, or double hoots like pygmy-owl (''Glaucidium''), sometimes extending to trill or interspersed with rasping notes". It sometimes sings all day but is most vocal near dawn. Its calls are "a mournful, downslurred 'wuooooo' nd aseries of accelerating, then decelerating barking notes, 'pah pah-pahpahpapapapa-pah-pah-grr?'."

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

has assessed the white-faced nunbird as being of Least Concern. Though it has a small range and its population has not been quantified, the latter is believed to be stable. It is considered rare to uncommon and local throughout its range, but does occur in several protected areas.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1269398 white-faced nunbird Birds of the Northern Andes white-faced nunbird Taxonomy articles created by Polbot