Nombre en español: Cucarachero Pechiblanco

Nombre en ingles: White-breasted Wood-Wren

Nombre científico: Henicorhina leucosticta

Familia: Troglodytidae

Foto: Carlos Mario Bran/Daniel Orozco

Canto: Juan Pablo Culasso (Hotel Tinamu)

El cucarachero pechiblanco, soterrey de selva pechiblanco o ratona gallineta (Henicorhina leucosticta) es una especie de ave de la familia Troglodytidae, que se encuentra desde el centro de México hasta Surinam y el nororiente del Perú.

Hábitat

Vive en el bosque húmedo tropical, hasta los 1.850 m de altitud.

Descripción

En promedio mide 10 cm de longitud y pesa 16 g. El dorso es castaño y la corona negruzca, presenta una línea superciliar blanca y otra negra a manera de antifaz cruzando cada ojo, así como varias pintas blancas y negras en la cabeza y el cuello. La garganta y el pecho son de color blanco, que se torna amarillo ante en la parte inferior del vientre. Las alas y la cola presentan rayas negras. Los ejemplares juveniles tienen el dorso más opaco y las partes inferiores grisáceas.

Llamado

Su llamado es un claro cheek o un explosivo tuck y su canto suena chir owit owit chiri wither. El ornitólogo y experto en bioacústica, Luis Baptista, de la Academia de Ciencias de California, compara con los primeros compases de la Quinta Sinfonía de Beethoven

Al igual que otros reyezuelos, suelen cantar en duetos.

Alimentación

Se alimenta principalmente de insectos y otros invertebrados. Busca alimento activamente en la vegetación baja y sobre el suelo, en parejas o en grupos familiares.

Nidos

Construye un nido de fibras con forma esférica y entrada lateral, sobre el suelo o a veces entre la maleza, y lo oculta bajo la vegetación. El interior tiene la forma de una canasta profunda. La hembra pone 2 huevos blancos que son incubados sólo por ella durante dos semanas. Tras la eclosión de los huevos, los polluelos duran otras dos semanas en el nido.

También construye, hasta a unos 3 m del suelo, un nido para dormir, el cual es más grande y sencillo.

White-breasted wood wren

The white-breasted wood wren (Henicorhina leucosticta) is a small songbird of the wren family. It is a resident breeding species from central Mexico to northeastern Peru and Suriname.

Description

The adult white-breasted wood wren is 10 centimetres (3.9 in) long and weighs 16 grams (0.56 oz). It has chestnut brown upperparts with a darker crown, pale supercilia, and black-and-white streaked sides of the head and neck. The underparts are white becoming buff on the lower belly. The wings and very short tail are barred with black. Young birds have duller upperparts and grey underparts.

Call

The opening bars of Symphony No. 5 by Ludwig van Beethoven

The call of this species is a sharp cheek or explosive tuck, and the song is cheer oweet oweet cheery weather; ornithologist and bioacoustics expert Luis Baptista of the California Academy of Sciences compared it to the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

As with some other wrens, pairs often sing in duets.

Habitat

H. leucosticta breeds in lowlands and foothills up to 1,850 metres (6,070 ft) above sea level in tropical wet forest and adjacent tall second growth. Its neat roofed nest is constructed on the ground or occasionally very low in undergrowth, and is concealed by dense vegetation. The eggs are incubated by the female alone for about two weeks to hatching, and the young fledge in about the same length of time again. This species may build a “dormitory nest” for individuals or family groups, which is typically higher, than the breeding nest, up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) off the ground.

The white-breasted wood wren forages actively in low vegetation or on the ground in pairs in family groups. It mainly eats insects and other invertebrates

The White-breasted Wood-Wren is one of two geographically widespread Henicorhina wrens, the other being the Gray-breasted Wood-Wren (Henicorhina leucophrys). The White-breasted Wood-Wren occurs in humid lowland forests over much of Middle America, from southern Mexico southwards, where mainly found over the Caribbean slope, and over large parts of northern South America east of the Andes. It mainly inhabits wet lowland forest, although it extends its range locally well into the Andean foothills. As many as 13 subspecies are generally recognized over the White-breasted Wood-Wren’s range, but the species’ basic plumage is consistent throughout its range—White-breasted Wood-Wrens have warm brown upperparts, barred darker over the wings and tail, with a darker head, a whitish supercilium, heavily white-and-black-streaked ear coverts, and principally white underparts becoming rufous or buff posteriorly.