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  Profile

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  In flight

Songbirds

Flame-faced Tanager

Tangara parzudakii

• rare
• 42 km/h
• Least Concern

The face looks like someone held a match to it. Three subspecies, each with a slightly different flame pattern.

Population

Not numerically quantified; historically described as fairly common, with a suspected slow decline (1-19% over 10 years) from Andean montane forest loss (~2.5% within range)

Habitat

Humid subtropical and tropical montane (cloud) forest, forest edges, and secondary growth; most frequent above 1,500 m, recorded 660-2,960 m elevation

Fun fact

The Flame-faced Tanager is named for its brilliant orange-red facial patch and forages almost exclusively by gleaning arthropods from mossy branches rather than hawking insects in flight.

Range

Andes of South America across ~1,210,000 km2: extreme southwest Venezuela (Tachira), Colombia (both Eastern Andes and, via subspecies lunigera, the Pacific slope/West Andes and NW Ecuador), Ecuador (east slope), and Peru (east slope south to Cuzco/Ayacucho)

Diet

Omnivorous — fruit (favoring Miconia and Cecropia), arthropods gleaned almost entirely from moss-covered branches, plus flower buds and nectar; joins mixed-species canopy foraging flocks

Size

0.145 m

Lifespan

8 years