Common Bush-Tanager
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| Chlorospingus ophthalmicus (Du Bus de Gisignies, 1847) |
The Common Bush-Tanager, Chlorospingus ophthalmicus, is a small passerine bird. This tanager is a resident breeder in the highlands from central Mexico south to Bolivia and northwest Argentina.
The Common Bush-Tanager is found in wet mountain forests and adjacent bushy clearings, typically from 400 m to 2300 m altitude. The bulky cup nest is built on bank, slope, or hidden amongst epiphytes up to 15 m high in a tree. The normal clutch is two brown-marked white eggs, and this species is regularly double-brooded.
The adult Common Bush-Tanager is 13.5 cm long and weighs 20g. The adult has a brown head with a white spot behind the eye and a grey throat. It has olive upperparts and yellow underparts, becoming white on the belly. Immatures are browner above, darker below, and have a duller olive eye spot.
The related Sooty-capped Bush-Tanager has a blacker head with a white supercilium rather than an eye spot.
Common Bush-Tanagers occur in small groups, or as part of a mixed-species feeding flock. This species feeds on insects, spiders small fruits and nectar.
The Common Bush-Tanager’s call is a squeaky tseeet, and the song is a high thin whichis whichis witchery tsee tseep seeur with many variations.
[edit] References
- Stiles and Skutch, A guide to the birds of Costa Rica ISBN 0-8014-9600-4
