FURNARIDS Furnariidae The furnarids are a huge family of New World passerines that range through virtually every habitat in South America. A few species are found north into Central America as far as southern Mexico (none have yet reached the United States). They are often called "Ovenbirds & allies" (as on my family list page) but "ovenbirds" are just a small subset of the family that builds hard mud nests resembling Dutch ovens. One of those is the Lesser Hornero (left) of the Amazon basin. This individual's nest was in the crotch of a bare Cecropia tree that was emerging from flood water along the Napo River in Peru. Another group is the foliage-gleaners which are "drab, mainly brown birds that inhabit the darkened interior of rainforests and cloudforests" of the New World (Parker 1979).

 
 
 
 

In South America, furnarids occur from sea-level to tree-line. The Peruvian Seaside Cinclodes (right) is shaped and colored rather like a drab starling but acts like a rocky shorebird as it forages among mussels exposed by low tide. Its cousin, the Bar-winged Cinclodes (below) hunts on the ground near tree-line, hopping along small rivulets at 11,000' elevation. Many furnarids are hard to see, and harder still to photograph, including numerous spinetails, canasteros, reedhaunters, and treerunners. Some live in pairs in dense thickets or cane; others are important components of huge undergrowth or sub-canopy flocks in Amazonian rainforests.
Many furnarid species are local, rare, or endangered. For me, the enigmatic Peruvian Recurvebill Simoxenops ucayalae in the Tambopata Reserve, southeastern Peru, was an unexpected treat in the moist, dank interior. In contrast, I struggled up steep slopes on Abre Malaga in the Peruvian Andes (where one must stop every few years to breathe and pray that one can avoid altitude sickness for just a little while longer) to reach isolated patches of Polyepis woods near 14,000' elevation to locate the endangered White-browed Tit-Spinetail Leptasthenura xenothorax (see Parker & O'Neil 1980 for a description of this area and its little known birds). And yet  I've managed to see only a quarter of the world's furnarids to date and there are many more to enjoy, from the thrasher-like earthcreepers to the mysterious Orinoco Softtail Thripophaga cherriei.

Photos: The Lesser Hornero Furnarius minor at the nest was just off Llachapa I. next to Sucasari camp, near the confluence of the Napo & Amazon rivers, Peru, in June 1987. Bob Tintle and I were in the same canoe and snapped almost identical photos, but he had a better lens and better lighting so I use his shot (thanks, Bob). The Peruvian Seaside Cinclodes Cinclodes taczanowskii was on the Islas Ballestras off Paracas, Peru, in June 1987; this photo was from a boat. The Bar-winged Cinclodes Cinclodes fuscus was showing its wing stripe on Papallaycta Pass, Ecuador, in Apr 1992. Photos © Bob Tintle and Don Roberson.

Bibliographic notes:

Family Book: I (out of 5 possible)
Vaurie, Charles. 1980. Taxonomy and geographical distribution of the Furnariidae. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. 166: 1-357.

It's not really fair to review this as a "family book" but it is the closest thing to one so far. Its intended audience is primarily other ornithologists, and Vaurie suggests numerous taxonomic innovations (only a few of which have since been accepted more widely). There are detailed plumage descriptions and essays on phylogeny in which distribution is discussed, but most birders would find the text hard-going and incomprehensible. Ten color plates in the front highlight representatives of various genera, but the paintings are not very good. The information on all species of South American furnarids in Ridgely & Tudor (1994) is much more accessible to readers, is much better presented, and is accompanied by wonderful paintings.
Other literature cited:
Parker, T. A., III. 1979. An introduction to foliage-gleaner identification. Continental Birdlife 1: 32-37. [A fantastic introductory article to a group of difficult foreign genera with particular relevance to Amazonian Peru -- it's a shame there aren't more papers like this. Unfortunately, it is difficult to find since Continental Birdlife only lasted a couple a years as a journal.]

Parker, T. A., III, and J. P. O'Neil. 1980. Notes on little known birds of the upper Urubamba Valley, southern Peru. Auk 97: 167-176.

Ridgely, R. S., and G. Tudor. 1994. The Birds of South America. Vol. 2: The Suboscine Passerines. Univ of Texas, Austin.

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