Spotted Piculet Picumnus pygmaeus Scientific name definitions

The Spotted Piculet is endemic to northeast Brazil, where it occurs from central Maranhão south to northern Minas Gerais, and inhabits drier woodland, including more open caatingas. It is a rather distinctive piculet, particularly on account of the warm brown underparts and face, heavily spotted with white, which characterise both sexes; typical of the genus, males have a red forecrown, whereas the crown in females is all dark. Very little has been published concerning the biology and behavior of this species, although the Spotted Piculet, like other Picumnus, is usually found in pairs that maintain vocal, if not always visual, contact, and forage both apart from and within mixed-species flocks, usually in the lower strata of the vegetation.

10 cm. Distinctive with dark plumage spotted with white. Male has top of head black, forecrown with broad red feather tips forming solid patch, rest of crown and nape spotted white ; buff-white lores, often white crescent above eye, dark brown cheeks and ear-coverts variably spotted white; moustachial region and neck sides broadly barred white; dark brown upperparts with prominent black-based whitish tips on mantle, scapulars and back, rump paler; wing-coverts edged paler, broadly tipped white; flight-feathers darker brown, secondaries and tertials broadly edged and tipped light buff or cinnamon-buff; uppertail blackish, central feather pair with broad white stripe along inner webs, outer 2 pairs with white subterminal area; chin and throat variable, black with large white spots or mainly white with black scale-like markings; rest of underparts  darkish brown to medium or light brown, usually tinged rufous, often paler on belly, with large white spots  each with contrasting black mark at base and tip, spots usually larger on flanks; underwing pale brownish, coverts whitish; undertail as uppertail, but paler; bill short, culmen very slightly curved, black with blue-grey base; iris deep brown; legs grey. Female lacks red on head . Juvenile  is duller, more diffusely patterned, markings below tending towards bars.

E Brazil from C Maranhão and Piauí E to Pernambuco, and S to NE Goiás and extreme N Minas Gerais.

Dry and open woodland and dense shrubs (caatinga), at up to 750m.

Distinctive, very high-pitched , squeaky “tsirrrrr, tsi, tsi, tsi”.

Virtually no information. Nest building recorded in Dec; female feeding  a grown chick recorded in Oct.