Rufous-tailed Plantcutter Phytotoma rara Scientific name definitions

Recently moved from the outdated family of Phytotomidae into the much more diverse Cotingidae, the Rufous-tailed Plantcutter is a distinctive species of woodland edge and scrub in Chile and Argentina. The name plantcutter refers to the tendency of the bird to cut and consume leaves, buds and fruits. The Rufous-tailed Plantcutter is often found by its distinctive chattery, trilling song which sounds remarkably like the drag on a fishing reel under stress.  The bird is visually recognizable by its stout, finch-like shape, stubby black bill with a curved culmen, red irides, and rufous (male) or pale-streaked (female) underparts.

18–20 cm; 38–44 g. Distinctive, with short crest, bright eye, short, stout, conical bill  with finely serrated edges. Male has chestnut crown  , blackish head side  ; hindneck and upperparts grey-brown, broadly streaked blackish-brown, wings blackish, broad white band on median wing-coverts and narrower one on greater coverts, tertials edged with buff; uppertail black, rufous inner webs; orange-rufous below , palest on belly , blackish underwing-coverts; dusky undertail with minute rufous-grey tips and broad rufous subterminal band  on outer rectrices; iris reddish, rarely orange; bill blackish; legs dark grey. Female  has head side and upperparts  light grey-brown, broadly streaked blackish-brown, two narrow buffy wingbars and buff edges of tertials, buffy underparts with dark brown streaks, belly plainer. Juvenile  is uniformly grey-brown with narrow buffy wingbars  ; immature male differs from adult in having black-brown streaks on crown, underparts streaked blackish-brown and buffy admixed with rufous.

Order: Passeriformes
Family: Cotingidae
Genus: Phytotoma

Initially, plantcutters were in their own family: Phytotomidae. Further analysis placed them in the family Cotingidae. Despite their differences in diet (plantcutters are herbivorous, cotingas are frugivorous and insectivorous), they have close similarities in their syringeal morphology as well as behavioral and vocal similarities (Laynon & Laynon, 1989).

C & S Chile (S from Vallenar, in S Atacama, to Magallanes) and SW Argentina (S from W Neuquén to W Santa Cruz).

Open thorny scrub (e.g. with Berberis bushes), woodland edges, clearings in Nothofagus forest, and secondary forest; also farmland, hedgerows, orchards, vineyards, gardens. Sea-level to 2700 m.

Diet mainly grasses  , buds, shoots and leaves  , especially of legumes, also some fruits and berries; insects also taken. Clear preference for vegetative matter , especially young leaves of monocotyledons, e.g. wheat (Triticum) and oat (Avena). Berries taken include those of e.g. Rubus ulmifolius, Aristotelia chilensis, Cestrum parqui and Myoporum tenuifolium. Nestlings fed almost exclusively with insects. Forages in pairs in breeding season, in groups of 6–12 individuals at other times. Feeds both on ground and in foliage .

Mechanical-sounding rasp , “e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-errrrrrrr”, initial notes accelerating and rising in volume and slightly in pitch, final “errrrrrrr” like sound made by the winding of an old-fashioned alarm clock. Contact call a mechanical “rara-rara”.

Two seasons, in Oct–Nov and in Dec–Jan; eggs in Jan and Oct–Dec, nestlings in Nov. Shallow cup-shaped nest, diameter 14–18 cm, height 7–9 cm, loosely built from thin dry twigs and padded with root fibres, often placed 1–3 m above ground inside thick thorny shrub, also sometimes high in tree, usually in fork of horizontal branch. Clutch 2–4 eggs  , old reports of 5–6 eggs considered unreliable; incubation lasts c. 2 weeks; nestling period not documented.

Due to its tendency to raid vegetable gardens and orchards, P. rara is perceived as a pest by humans and is often persecuted (Wilson et al, 1994). Despite this, P. rara does very well in urban and fragmented forest areas, where scrub is the predominant vegetation. Conservation of the surrounding forests is of greater concern to the other bird species in the area, due to the high levels of endemism (Wilson et al, 1994).
Human encroachment on habitat from timber agriculture, and commercial logging has resulted in fragmented forest areas and forest patches (Wilson et al, 1994). Generally, a decrease in patch size has caused a decrease in biodiversity effecting many bird species of the region;however due to its adaptability to the conditions created by human encroachment the P. rara population has gone largely unaffected.