Andean Tinamou - BirdForum Opus

Subspecies niethammeri
Photo © by Stanley Jones
Reserva National Lomas de Lachay, Huaura Department, Lima Region, Peru, January 2017

Identification

25·5–30 cm (10-11¾ in)

Greyish-brown to olive brown upperparts; barred and streaked with black and white
Grey breast spotted with white or buff
Buff or whitish belly
Blackish crown
Sides of head and throat mottled greyish
Yellow legs

South America: found in the Andes from Ecuador to northern Chile and Argentina.

Seven recognized subspecies.^[1]

ambigua occurs in southern Ecuador
oustaleti in southern Ecuador and northwest Peru
niethammeri on the central Peruvian coast
fulvescens in southeast Peru
pentlandii from Andes of western Bolivia, extreme northern Chile (Arica; no recent records), and northwestern Argentina (south to La Rioja and Santiago del Estero, except for western Salta)
patriciae Andes of northwestern Argentina (western Salta)
doeringi in central Argentina
mendozae in west-central Argentina

Scrub on steep slopes and open woodland. Generally between 1500–3600 m though sometimes higher to over 4000 m.

They have a mostly vegetarian diet, consisting of potato crops, barley, seeds, shoots, buds and small fruit. They also eat some insects.

They lay their eggs in a depression, about 15cm wide.

A resident species.

Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved August 2017)

BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Andean Tinamou. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 14 January 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Andean_Tinamou

GSearch checked for 2020 platform.