Fine-barred piculet facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Fine-barred piculet |
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Picumnus
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| Species: |
subtilis
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The fine-barred piculet (Picumnus subtilis) is a small bird that belongs to the woodpecker family. It's part of a group called Picumninae, which are tiny woodpeckers. You can find this bird in parts of Brazil and Peru.
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About This Bird's Family
The fine-barred piculet is a unique species, meaning it doesn't have different subspecies. Some scientists think it's closely related to the plain-breasted piculet (P. castelnau). They might even sometimes have babies together.
What It Looks Like
The fine-barred piculet is about 10 cm (3.9 in) long, which is about the size of your hand. It weighs around 10 to 11 g (0.35 to 0.39 oz), which is super light!
Male birds have a black top of the head and back of the neck. The feathers on the front of their head have bright reddish-orange tips, and the rest have white spots. Their face is mostly light brown with some gray and whitish wavy lines. Their upper body is yellowish-olive with some olive marks that make it look faintly striped. Their flight feathers are dark brown with olive-yellow edges. Their tail is black, and the two innermost feathers have white on the inside.
Their chin and throat are dull white. Their belly and chest are gray with straw-yellow tips and stripes. They have brown eyes, a black beak with a blue-gray base, and olive-green legs.
Female birds look almost the same as males, but they have white spots all over their head and no red. Young birds have a brownish-black head with wide off-white or light brown streaks. Their upper bodies are more heavily striped than adult birds.
Where It Lives
For a long time, people thought the fine-barred piculet only lived in southeastern Peru. But since about 2009, it has also been found in the Acre state of far western Brazil. There seems to be a gap between these two areas where the bird isn't found.
In Peru, it's mostly seen in old, untouched forests along rivers. It also lives in nearby forests that have grown back after being cut down. In Brazil, it lives at the edges of tall, dry forests, especially where there's a lot of a type of bamboo called Guadua. This bird can be found as high as 1,100 m (3,600 ft) up in the mountains.
Behavior
Feeding Habits
The fine-barred piculet looks for food on thin branches, stems, and vines. It usually searches for food in the middle to upper parts of the forest. You'll often see it alone or in pairs. Sometimes, it joins groups of different bird species that are all looking for food together. We don't know exactly what it eats, but scientists believe it mainly eats insects.
Reproduction
The fine-barred piculet's breeding season seems to be in June and July, and it might last until December. Not much else is known about how these birds raise their young.
Sounds It Makes
The fine-barred piculet's song is a series of sharp, high notes that go down in pitch. It usually sings about seven notes like this: SEE see see see see see see. When it's looking for food, it also makes soft tapping sounds.
How It's Doing
The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) says the fine-barred piculet is a species of "Least Concern." This means it's not currently in danger of disappearing. We don't know exactly how many of these birds there are, but their numbers are thought to be slowly going down. No big threats have been found for them. People don't usually bother them much, unless their forest homes are destroyed.
