Cordilleran Canastero Asthenes modesta Scientific name definitions

Cordilleran Canastero is a small Furnariid found along the majority of the Andean chain from Peru south to Patagonia. The species is pale tan above with a thin black bill, pale superciliary, whitish throat with a orange central patch, streaked buffy underparts, and long, wren-like tail with rufous outer tail feathers. Cordilleran Canastero can be separated from other similar species by the amount of streaking on the neck and flanks, coloration of lateral rectrices, habitat, and vocalizations. Strongly terrestrial and curious, this canastero is often detected by its chattering, trilling song as it roams around boulder-strewn grasslands.

15–16 cm; 13–22 g. Typical canastero with coloured throat patch, some striping on head, medium-length tail. Nominate race has narrow light buff-brown super­cilium extending to bill base, dark brownish lores, brownish auriculars faintly flammulated; crown and upperparts dull dark brown (back paler and more sandy-coloured in S of range), vague blackish spotting on forehead, slight rufescent tinge on rump and uppertail-coverts; dark brownish wing-coverts with chestnut-rufous margins, margins of greaters fulvous or dull tawny, remiges dark fuscous with rufous at bases; tail graduated, central pairs of rectrices tapered and somewhat pointed at tips, dark fuscous and rufous in varying proportions, from rufous confined to outer webs of central pair, to outer pair being almost completely rufous except for some dark fuscous at base of inner webs; malar region whitish buff-brown with darker brown streaks; chin and upper throat pale brownish with dark to pale orange-rufous (source of variation uncertain) feather bases forming “messy” throat patch; neck side, lower throat and upper breast whitish grey-brown with obscure darker streaking, rest of breast and belly pale brown, flanks and undertail-coverts tinged rufescent; iris brown to dark brown; upper mandible black to dark brownish-horn, lower mandible horn to brownish-grey with dark tip; tarsus and toes blackish-grey to dusky brown. Sexes alike. Juvenile lacks throat patch, has mottled breast and belly. Race <em>proxima</em> is like darker-backed nominate, but outer webs of rectrices paler, tawny-rufous rather than intense rufous; rostrata has darker upperparts, including central rectrices, and rufous in wings darker; hilereti has greyer back than nominate race or previous; serrana is like nominate, but underparts paler and greyer, less rufescent (but more ochraceous below and more rufescent above than previous); cordobae darker brown, less cinnamon, above and less cinnamon below than nominate, with wings and tail darker than other races; <em>australis</em> is greyer above than nominate, wing-coverts less rufescent, paler and less buffy underparts, also longer bill.

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Editor's Note: Additional distribution information for this taxon can be found in the 'Subspecies' article above. In the future we will develop a range-wide distribution article.

Puna grassland, southern temperate grassland; arid to semi-humid grassland, often rocky and often with scattered low bushes, locally in arid montane scrub in S Argentina; also arid Polylepis thickets, scrub Baccharis tola scrub, and dry open woodland. From near sea-level to 4500 m.

Resident.

Arthropods; recorded dietary items are Coleoptera, ants, cockroaches (Blattidae). Usually forages solitarily, occasionally in pairs. Gleans items from ground , also rarely from low vegetation.

Song an ascending fast trill that ends abruptly, c. 2 seconds long; also more complex trill with introductory notes; in Argentina, described as “chichichi, chiri, chiri… chichichi, chiri, chiri”. Call a short, low “pyup” or “tjit”.

Season during austral spring-summer; eggs in Oct–Jan and nestlings in Nov and Feb in Argentina; eggs in Nov in Chile; fledglings in Apr in C Bolivia. Presumably monogamous. Nest a cylindrical or spherical mass of twigs, often thorny ones, tightly interwoven, often feathers and hair included, entrance hole on side, interior chamber c. 12–15 cm in diameter, lined with feathers and hair; placement exceptionally variable, sometimes 0·5–2 m up in bush, also on ground in rock crevice, in hole in dirt bank, among root clumps, or in abandoned nest of other bird. Clutch 2 eggs in Argentina, 3–4 in Chile.

Not globally threatened. Fairly common to common in much of its range. Habitat occupied by this species is generally subjected to at least moderate overgrazing.