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Chotoy Spinetail (Schoeniophylax phryganophilus)
🐦 Native species of the Iberá

Chotoy Spinetail

Schoeniophylax phryganophilus

The spinetail of the Iberá reedbeds. Its chotoy-chotoy song is unmistakable. Brown with a rufous crown and a yellow throat with a black patch. A specialist of wet edges.

An ovenbird (furnariid) of 19 to 22 cm with a brown-olive back, a rufous crown and a yellow throat with a black patch edged in white. The breast and belly are ochre-whitish. The tail is long, graduated and brown. The bill is medium-sized and slightly curved. It lives along the wet edges of marshes, in reedbeds with emergent shrubby vegetation and in the reed stands near the water. It is larger and less strictly aquatic than the wren-like rushbird (junquero) and the curutié spinetail.

Behaviour

Active and not very elusive. It moves among the shrubby vegetation and the reeds at mid-height, looking for insects. Its song is very characteristic and gives the bird its name: a rhythmic, energetic repetition of "cho-toy cho-toy cho-toy" that resounds at the edges of the wetland. It builds spherical nests of plant fibers in the vegetation.

How and when to see it

Year round. Its distinctive song gives it away easily. The edges of the wetlands with reed beds and shrubs at all the portals.

Where to see it in the Iberá

The gateways of the Great Iberá Park where chotoy spinetail has confirmed presence:

Tours to see it

Verified providers operating at the gateways where chotoy spinetail lives. You contact them directly on WhatsApp from the app.

Species profile

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