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 Coraya Wren  Thryothorus coraya


 

 Sonogram of Coraya Wren duet

Tarapoto-Urahuasha trail, San Martín, Peru   06°28'39.8'' S  76°21'05.9'' W   22 September 2009

I made some sound recordings of Coraya Wrens soon after dawn one morning. This species engages in antiphonal duetting where both sexes contribute alternative phrases in quick, coordinated succession to produce a ‘final’ song. To our ears this can sound like it is being produced from just a single individual. According to the new Birds of Peru field guide by Schulenberg et al, the Moustached Wren (T. genibarbis) has a near identical song but its distribution is generally allopatric with Coraya Wren and occurs south of the Amazon river and (mainly) east of the Ucayali river. The Coraya Wrens around Tarapoto are difficult to observe but the facial plumage actually looks more like Moustached! As I said, they are difficult to observe and at this site they keep well hidden in dense scrub in long cleared secondary growth. The birds in the sonogram below were not visible during the sound recording but I believe the male bird is producing the rapid phrase of four deeper hoots then two higher pitched whistles, quickly followed by the female’s higher pitched ‘wolf whistle’ phrase. If you look closely just after 3 seconds, you’ll see the female overlaps the end of the male’s phrase. (A cicada is creating the continuous band of noise around 4 kHz).

[File name: corayawren220909e] Click here for the MP3 file


 


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