Freckle-breasted Thornbird

The spot-breasted thornbird is 16 to 20 cm (6.3 to 7.9 in) long and weighs about 24 to 27 g (0.85 to 0.95 oz). It is a medium-sized thornbird. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have an indistinct light brownish supercilium that extends beyond the eye and a very narrow dark brown stripe behind the eye on an otherwise light brownish face. Their crown is brownish chestnut with whitish spots, their back dull reddish brown, and their rump and uppertail coverts a slightly paler reddish brown. Their wings are mostly shades of brown with darker brown primary coverts and flight feathers with rufous edges and dusky tips. Their tail's central pair of feathers are dull rufescent brown and the rest dull rufous. Their throat is dingy whitish, their breast light brownish with pale streaks and dark rufous speckles, their belly light brownish white, and their flanks and undertail coverts dull gray-brown. Their iris is yellow to creamy buff or pale orange, their maxilla blackish to brownish, their mandible gray, and their legs and feet gray to greenish gray. Juveniles have a less rufescent back than adults.

The freckle-breasted thornbird is found in northern Argentina between the provinces of Formosa and Buenos Aires, in Brazil from Paraná state south, and in most of Uruguay. It possibly also occurs in Paraguay; the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society has only sight records from that country and so treats it as hypothetical there. The species inhabits a variety of landscapes, almost always near water. These include thickets along watercourses, gallery forest, the borders of marshes, and arid scrublands. In elevation it occurs from near sea level to 700 m (2,300 ft).

The freckle-breasted thornbird feeds on a wide variety of arthropods including beetles, grasshoppers, and scale insects. It usually forages in pairs. It captures prey by gleaning from the ground or from vegetation as high as the forest's understorey.