Original description: Embernagra albinucha Lafresnaye and D’Orbigny 1838
Taxonomic history in AOU/AOS Check-list
AOU 6 (1983): White-naped Brush-Finch, Atlapetes albinucha
AOU 7 (1998): White-naped Brush-Finch, Atlapetes albinucha [albinucha group and gutturalis group]
IUCN Conservation Status: Of least concernHabitat:
Behavior: White-naped Brush Finches feed individually or as pairs near the ground in clearings and on the edges of pine and deciduous evergreen woodland; they are “usually fairly skulking.” Feeding birds are “boisterous and bounding,” moving “in springy hops, poking through litter with bill… rarely scratching,” and also gleaning low-level foliage for berries and insects.
Songs are given from conspicuous perches.
Voice:The call is a high, thin, decidedly downslurred dswee, with a soft attack and long, trailing decay. The song is a well-cadenced but variable series of loud, slurred whistles, often beginning with an emphatic slur followed by a pause and a descending phrase of two or three sweet whistles: teeu—tee weeree tee.
Detailed description and measurements drawn from standard reference works
Adult Atlapetes albinucha albinucha: Tail feathers, upper tail coverts, rump, and back blackish gray, sometimes with faint olive tinge. Primaries, secondaries, and tertials blackish gray with faint grayer edges. Greater and median coverts slaty to blackish gray with indistict paler gray tips and edges. Nape unstreaked black.
Under tail coverts and vent lemon yellow, slightly paler than deep lemon yellow belly, breast, throat, and jaw stripe. Flanks and breast sides olive-gray.
Crown black with well-defined white median stripe. Remainder of head and nape black.
Tarsus and toes dark gray. Swollen-based bill black.
Juvenile Atlapetes albinucha albinucha: Tail feathers, upper tail coverts, rump, and back brownish black. Primaries, secondaries, and tertials brownish with faint paler edges. Greater and median coverts brownish to blackish with indistict paler tips and edges. Nape unstreaked brownish black.
Under tail coverts and vent brownish olive. Belly, breast, and throat pale yellow. Flanks and breast sides brownish olive. Jaw stripe pale yellow with faint dusky flecking.
Crown dark sooty brown with brownish to whitish streaking, coalescing into poorly defined median stripe. Remainder of head and nape dark sooty brown.
Tarsus and toes dark gray. Swollen-based bill gray.
Length 157-190 mm (6.2-7.5 inches)
Wing 72-79 mm (2.8-3.1 inches)
Tail 74-80 mm (2.9-3.1)
W:T 0.88
Mass 31-37 g
