| Sooty-capped Bush-Tanager | |
|---|---|
| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Thraupidae |
| Genus: | Chlorospingus |
| Species: | C. pileatus |
| Binomial name | |
| Chlorospingus pileatus Salvin, 1864 |
|
The Sooty-capped Bush-Tanager, Chlorospingus pileatus, is a small passerine bird. This tanager is an endemic resident breeder in the highlands of Costa Rica and western Panama.
The Sooty-capped Bush-Tanager is found in mossy mountain forests, second growth and adjacent bushy clearings, typically from 1600 m altitude to above the timberline. The bulky cup nest is built on bank, in a dense bush, or hidden amongst epiphytes up to 11 m high in a tree. The normal clutch is two pink-brown marked white eggs.
The adult Sooty-capped Bush-Tanager is 13.5 cm long and weighs 20g. The adult has a blackish head with a white supercilium and a grey throat. It has olive upperparts and yellow underparts, becoming white on the belly. Some individuals in the Irazu-Turrialba area are greyer and lack yellow in the underparts. Immatures are browner-headed, duller below, and have a duller olive-tinged supercilium. This species is easily distinguished from Common Bush-Tanager by its blacker head and obvious supercilium.
Sooty-capped Bush-Tanagers occur in small groups, or as part of a mixed-species feeding flock. This species feeds on insects, spiders and small fruits.
The Sooty-capped Bush-Tanager’s call is a high tseet tseet, and the song is a scratchy seechur seechur see see seechur seechur with variations.