Creamy-crested Spinetail Cranioleuca albicapilla

The Creamy-crested Spinetail is an unmistakable and fairly large furnariid with a long, graduated rufous tail, a striking head pattern characterised by a distinctive cream-coloured crest, and contrasting dark rufous wing coverts. A highly arboreal species, the Creamy-crested Spinetail is described as being locally common, and most often encountered in pairs which tend to follow mixed-species flocks. Fairly ubiquitous in terms of its habitat requirements within its elevational and geographic range, but tends to avoid the more humid cloud-forest habitats. The Creamy-crested Spinetail is not currently ranked as globally threatened, and appears tolerant, to a degree, of some anthropogenic disturbance to its woodland habitats.

Creamy-crested Spinetail; left image © Fabrice Schmitt, right image © Roger Ahlman