Pale-legged Hornero

The pale-legged hornero is 15 to 18 cm (5.9 to 7.1 in) long and weighs about 37 to 49 g (1.3 to 1.7 oz). It is a medium-sized hornero with a long and nearly straight bill. The sexes' plumages are alike. Adults of the nominate subspecies F. l. leucopus have a wide whitish supercilium, brownish gray ear coverts, and a tawny-rufous malar area. Their crown is dark rufescent brown. Their back, rump, and uppertail coverts average bright orange rufous but vary between tawny rufous and rufous amber. Their tail is chestnut. Their wing coverts are chestnut and their flight feathers blackish with a wide chestnut band. Their throat is white that becomes tawny-ochraceous on the breast. Their flanks are paler tawny-ochraceous, the center to their belly nearly whitish, and their undertail coverts whitish with dark brown bases. Their iris is usually reddish brown or chestnut, and gray-brown or gray in tricolor. Their maxilla is dusky horn at its base with a paler culmen and tip and their mandible is also pale. Their legs and feet are pale pinkish, pearly gray, or whitish. Juveniles resemble adults but for a visibly shorter bill and the shape of their flight and tail feathers. Subspecies F. l. tricolor has a grayer crown, more ochraceous back, and paler wings and tail than the nominate. F. l. assimilis has a lighter, more ochraceous rump, wings, and tail than tricolor, and a paler wing band. F. …

The subspecies of the pale-legged hornero are found thus:

F. l. leucopus: along the rios Negro and Branco in northern Brazil and in southwestern Guyana F. l. tricolor: eastern Peru, western Brazil east into Pará, and into Bolivia to Santa Cruz Department; one record in southeastern Ecuador F. l. araguaiae: western Tocantins and eastern Mato Grosso states in central Brazil along the rios Araguaia and das Mortes F. l. assimilis: eastern and southern Brazil between Maranhão, Pernambuco, and Mato Grosso do Sul, and extreme southeastern Bolivia The pale-legged hornero inhabits a wide variety of semi-open to open landscapes. These include forest and woodlands along rivers (gallery forest), the edges of secondary forest, agricultural areas, and parks and gardens in towns. It favors humid areas, usually near water. In elevation it mostly occurs below 1,100 m (3,600 ft), though it seldom exceeds 400 m (1,300 ft) in Bolivia and locally reaches 1,700 m (5,600 ft) in Peru.

The pale-legged hornero's diet is mostly a variety of arthropods. It also includes other small invertebrates like snails and there is one record of an individual eating a toad. It forages singly or in pairs while walking on the ground, turning over leaves to glean its prey.