art01 - omena júnior.indd - Sociedade Brasileira de Ornitologia

Notes on the breeding ecology and seasonality of some Brazilian birdsGuy M. Kirwan125but possessed obviously shorter bills and marginally morestriking pale eye-rings. Only once was it possible to identifyany of the food items brought for the young, namelya large insect larva. All four birds remained in close proximityto an abandoned termitarium suspended in a bushc. 1.5 m above the ground at a forest edge, which at leastone of the adults was seen to enter. It is possible that thenest had been sited in this termitarium, although it isequally plausible that the adult that visited it was merelyforaging. The very few previous nesting data for this specieswere summarised by Rasmussen and Collar (2002):the nest is suspected to be a hole in a bank or a tree, andan immature has been observed in Amazonia in November.My data indicate that the species breeds at a similarseason in southeast Brazil, and also raise the possibilitythat the species might, at least occasionally, use arborealtermitaria for nesting, like some other puffbirds (e.g. Russet-throatedPuffbird Hypnelus ruficollis and ChestnutcappedPuffbird Argicus macrodactylus). Rasmussen andCollar (2002) could point to very few breeding data forany of the Nonnula, but the nest of the Brown NunletN. brunnea, in a hole at the base of a tree, has recentlybeen described from Peru (Dauphiné et al. 2007).White-barred Piculet Picumnus cirratusThree nests found at the same locality, near Sumidouro,in north-central Rio de Janeiro, all very close to adirt road in a relatively dry forest fragment with a canopyheight of c. 10‐15 m and a rather open understorey. On19 October 2004, an adult was observed bringing smallwhite larvae to a nest hole, 2 m above ground, in an unidentifiednarrow-trunked tree species, which judgingfrom the sounds emanating from within contained morethan one young. The nest hole was shielded from aboveby a c. 10 cm-wide fungal growth. In the morning of 24October 2005, in the same general area, I watched a maleexcavating a nest hole just 2.5 m above ground in a tree.Finally, on 3 October 2007, a pair was observed enteringa hole in a tree just a few metres from the 2005 nest, beingsited < 6 m above ground in a broken-off tree fork.Breeding is comparatively well known for this species(cf. Winkler and Christie 2002), although informationon incubation and fledging periods is lacking, but it isinteresting to note that all three nests faced west to northwest,and were within a total radius of < 10 m, indicatingstrong site faithfulness by what was presumably the samepair or their offspring.Ochre-collared Piculet Picumnus temminckiiTogether with H. Shirihai, I found an adult maleattending a nest at the southern end of Ilha Comprida,in southern São Paulo state, on 22 October 2007. Thenest was sited in a small grove of trees isolated on all sidesfrom the restinga forest characteristic of this island. Thenest tree’s canopy was slightly lower than the rest of thegrove of trees, which reached 5‐6 m above ground, andthe nest hole itself was c. 2.5 m above the ground. It wasimpossible to see into the nest from the ground, makingit impossible to establish whether young were present,although the male was observed taking food inside (nofemale was seen). For this species, Winkler and Christie(2002) were only able to state that it ‘presumably nests inOct‐Mar’, making mine the first definite breeding datafor this southern Atlantic Forest endemic.Yellow-eared Woodpecker Veniliornis maculifronsOn 17 August 2004, in foothill Atlantic Forest, ata locality known as Garrafão, below Teresópolis, Rio deJaneiro, I found a pair of this Brazilian endemic withat least one well-grown young in an unidentified tree,c. 30 m tall. The nest hole (diameter c. 7 cm) was in themain trunk of the tree, at c. 18 m above ground. Winklerand Christie (2002) were unable to present any concretebreeding data and simply stated ‘Presumably breeds inSept‐Oct.’ My discovery of a nest in mid August indicatesthat the breeding season is, unsurprisingly, more protracted.To date, there seems to be no species of Veniliornis forwhich incubation or fledging periods are known (Winklerand Christie 2002).Yellow-browed Woodpecker Piculus aurulentusOn 1 August 2005, on a narrow trail at c. 1,200 m,in Itatiaia National Park, Rio de Janeiro, I observed apair excavating a nest hole, 5 m up in a canopy-heighttree. Published breeding data for this species are very few(Winkler and Christie 2002), and apparently solely basedon a nest found in northeast Argentina, 7 m up, in September(Hartert and Venturi 1909, de la Peña 1994).Ringed Woodpecker Celeus torquatusOn 7 October 2003, in the Reserva Biológica deSooretama, Espírito Santo, I observed a lone RingedWoodpecker apparently prospecting a nest site in the uppermidstorey (c. 15 m above ground) of a canopy heighttree. Nothing is apparently known concerning the breedingof this species (Winkler and Christie 2002), makingit particularly surprising that the first (albeit anecdotal)data to become available should be for the highly rangerestrictedtaxon C. t. tinnunculus, which is found only inthe lowlands of eastern Brazil in the states of Espírito Santoand Bahia. Together with the nearby CVRD (now simplyVale) Linhares reserve, the Reserva Biológica de Sooretamamust represent an important site for this rare taxon,despite that Parker and Goerck (1997) did not register thespecies during their surveys of the biological reserve.Revista Brasileira de Ornitologia, 17(2), 2009