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To the Beauty of Birds

The Yellow-chinned Spinetail (Certhiaxis cinnamomeus) is a passerine bird found in the tropical New World from Trinidad and Colombia south to Argentina and Uruguay. It is a member of the South American bird family Furnariidae.

The yellow-chinned spinetail is typically 15 cm long, and weighs 15 g. It is a slender bird with a long tail. The upperparts and head are chestnut brown, and the underparts are whitish apart from the pale yellow throat. The sexes are similar, but there are several subspecies, differing in forecrown colour or upperparts tone.

Its call is a shrill rattling.

The range is shown in the range figure.

This species is a common resident breeder in marshes and the edges of mangrove swamps; in general its habitat is open woodland in the vicinity of rivers. The yellow-chinned spinetail feeds on insects and spiders, keeping low and often in the open. It is a conspicuous, confiding and noisy bird. Unlike the related ovenbirds, the yellow-chinned spinetail constructs a large spherical stick nest, usually low in a mangrove or other marsh vegetation. The tubular entrance tunnel rises almost vertically from the base to the top of the nest. The normal clutch is three, sometimes four, greenish white eggs.

This spinetail is parasitised by the striped cuckoo (Tapera naevia), which lays one or two eggs in the nest, but it is not known how the cuckoo enters the nest or whether it or its offspring eject the host's young.

These were photographed a the Agriculature Station, Trinidad.

Yellow-chinned Spinetail