On today’s show we learn about the Royal Cinclodes, a critically endangered avian native to western South America, in the Andes Mountains of Peru and Bolivia.
Rough Transcript
Intro 00:05
Welcome to Bad at Goodbyes.
On today’s show we consider the Royal Cinclodes.
Species Information 02:05
The Royal Cinclodes is a critically endangered avian native to western South America, in the Andes Mountains of Peru and Bolivia.
The Royal Cinclodes is a medium-sized bird, roughly 8 inches in length weighing around 2 ounces. Two ounces is pretty light, the weight of a tennis ball or a deck of cards, or a slice of hearty bread.
Avian species adapted for flight tend to be lightweight. This is simplified but we can think of avian flight as a balancing of caloric intake (eating), which fuels flight muscles that produce enough kinetic energy (flapping the wings) to counteract the downward force of gravity (this is called lift). A heavier object experiences stronger gravitational pull, requiring more energy to produce lift, needing stronger muscles and more food. And hence, many elements of avian physiology are instead adapted to be lightweight.
They have hollow bones filled with air sacs. Feathers are made of keratin, like our hair and nails, so they are strong and also light. Birds don’t have some of the heavier internal organs we find in mammals, such as a urinary bladder. Instead they excrete uric acid, which as the unlucky among us know, is a semi-solid waste product, they are not weighted down by liquid waste storage. And lastly, while birds have powerful flight muscles, their overall muscle mass is relatively low compared to their body size. Lightweighted, needing less energy to produce lift.
Okay, so back to our specific avian today. The Royal Cinclodes is medium-sized lightweight bird with predominantly brown plumage. The wings have a bit of a reddish hue, edged with black at the base of the flight feathers. It has a white supercilium, this is a stripe of feathers that runs from the beak to the nape of the neck, a kind of light-colored “eyebrow”. It has whitish cheeks, a creamy tan breast that fades back to brown at the belly.
Their legs and feet are dark gray and their clawed toes have an anisodactyl formation, so that’s three toes in front, one in the back.
Their eyes are dark brown. Their bill is black, roughly 1 inch long and is decurved, meaning it points downward, an adaptation that serves their mainly insectivorous diet.
Insectivorous, as you likely guessed, means eats insects. The Royal Cinclodes has been observed feeding on
Butterfly larvae, scarab beetles, as well as other invertebrate like spiders, earthworms and leeches. Their decurved bill is used for probing, into cracks in rock, into patches of moss and leaf litter, into decaying wood, and into the soft earth in boggy bits of their habitat.
The Royal Cinclodes is considered a terrestrial bird, spending most of its time on the ground. While it may occasionally perch on low branches or outcrops, its day-to-day is primarily lived on the forest floor, foraging for food, preening and bathing, socializing and defending their territory.
The Royal Cinclodes social structure is centered around monogamous pairs and small family groups. Pairs generally maintain close proximity to one another and their offspring, ranging a small territory of about 8 acres, like 4 soccer fields, or 3-4 city blocks, which includes their nesting site and foraging grounds.
Royal Cinclodes are territorial, defending their chosen home range from intrusion by other Royal Cinclodes and by closely related species that might compete for similar resources. Visual displays, such as wing-flicking and tail-fanning, may be employed to assert dominance and the Royal Cinclodes are powerful vocalizers. Their light chirps can escalate into a sharp harsh trill. Let’s have a listen to two examples from field recording by Andrew Spencer and Joseph Tobbias and Nathalie Seddon.
[BIRD SONG RECORDINGS]
The Royal Cinclodes call is also used for attracting mates, and announcing territorial quality to potential mates. “Check out the grubs I got in my moss.” As mentioned, the Royal Cinclodes form breeding pairs, and observations suggest these may be enduring bonds, lasting for multiple breeding seasons.
Once a pair bond forms, both collaborate on nest building. Royal Cinclodes are tunnel nesters, nesting in cavities excavated in banks, in cracks in cliffsides, in repurposed rodent burrows. The nest itself is a simple cupped structure made of twigs, moss, and grasses.
Pairs begin establishing territories and engaging in courtship behaviors as early as September, nesting and breeding in November, December, January. And then around the top of the year the female will lay a clutch of usually two eggs, which are incubated by both parents for about two weeks.
Care is biparental throughout. They take turns incubating the eggs, and once the chicks hatch, they work together to feed and protect the young. The chicks remain in the nest for another two-three weeks before fledging, leaving the nest, after which they continue to receive parental care, and learn essential foraging and survival skills for several months, before the young disperse to establish their own territories.
The Royal Cinclodes is native to southeastern Peru and western Bolivia, to the Polylepis forests in the Andes Mountains. These Polylepis woodlands, so called as they are dominated by Polylepis trees, occupy an elevational band 2-3 miles above sea level. This is the highest elevation at which trees can grow in the Andes, often rooting on steep slopes in cloud-soaked valleys.
Polylepis trees are gnarled and twisted evergreens, with reddish, papery bark and dense foliage that canopies a rich understory of moss, ferns, and damp soils, an ideal habitat for the invertebrates on which the Royal Cinclodes feeds. This is a lush and humid, specialized ecosystem. Fog covered, severe, mysterious, a fairytale at the edge of the atmosphere.
These Polylepis woodlands see wide temperature fluctuations between day and night, and between seasons. Summer temperatures can reach into the 60s°F during the day, but plummet below freezing at night. Winter temperatures are consistently colder, dropping below 20°F. Annual rainfall ranges between 20 and 40 inches, with a distinct summer rainy season occurring from November to March (this the southern hemisphere).
The Royal Cinclodes shares its high-altitude home with Andean Fox, Lichen, Fern, Spectacled Bear, Giant Conebill, White-bellied Frog, Ash-breasted Tit-Tyrant, Mountain Viscacha, orchid, Yareta, many species of Polylepis trees include the Queñoa, daisytree, Queen of the Andes, Stripe-headed Antpitta, groundsel and many many more.
————
In the dream,
here in New York, on the streets, or on the walk by the river, when I sing I dream it drifts upward. My song alight on the wind ever-rising and rising. Lifting through the skyscraper canyons, LaGuardia flight paths, past GPS satellites. And I think perhaps I sing to the heavens to forewarn my arrival
“Old moon” I say, “I am in no hurry, but I am on my way.”
And in the dream I wonder of the Cinclodes song, offered from the top floor, from the gnarled penthouse of this world, a song by a vocalist who can themselves, fly. And so I suspect their song tumbles downward. It is a music with mass, gravity tugged, notes avalanching down the mountainside.
“Hello grasslands” they sing “Make up a moss bed, make it soft, I’ll be far from home.”
In the dream.
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Threats to the Royal Cinclodes population stem primarily from human activities.
Their Polylepis woodland habitat is being cleared and fragmented by agricultural expansion, livestock grazing, and firewood collection. The deforestation of these woodlands for resources, cropland, and pasture, removes nesting sites, and foraging grounds; a habitat loss and degradation that leads to population decline.
Overgrazing by human-introduced domestic livestock, further exacerbates habitat degradation. These animals trample and consume the understory vegetation, reducing the availability of food and shelter for the Cinclodes and disrupting ecosystem balance in general.
Fire is an increasing threat: unchecked agricultural burning has resulted in damaging wildfires, which has longterm impact as Polylepis trees are slow-growing, these are not fire-adapted woodlands that naturally regenerate after fire.
Human-induced climate change poses an additional longterm threat to the Royal Cinclodes and its habitat. Rising temperatures and altered precipitation patterns will affect the availability of water and food resources, and increase the frequency and severity of wildfires, further fragmenting and degrading the Polylepis woodlands.
In both Peru and Bolivia the Royal Cinclodes is legally protected. And swaths of its habitat in both countries are on protected land, in national parks and special reserves.
Over the last twenty years, eight community-based private conservation areas have been created and over one million trees have been planted in habitat restoration efforts.
Nevertheless the Royal Cinclodes has been considered critically endangered on the IUCN Red List since 1994 and their population is currently in decline.
Our most recent counts estimate that less than 250 Royal Cinclodes remain in the wild.
Citations 22:55
Information for today’s show about the Royal Cinclodes was compiled from:
Biodiversity and Conservation v.17, 2645-2660 (2008). Lloyd, H., Marsden, S.J. “Bird community variation across Polylepis woodland fragments and matrix habitats: implications for biodiversity conservation within a high Andean landscape”, – https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-008-9343-2
Bird Conservation International, Volume 3, Issue 1, March 1993, pp. 37 - 55. Fjeldså, Jon. (1993). “The avifauna of the Polylepis woodlands of the Andean highlands: the efficiency of basing conservation priorities on patterns of endemism.” – https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959270900000770
BirdLife International (2025) “Species factsheet: Royal Cinclodes Cinclodes aricomae” – https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/royal-cinclodes-cinclodes-aricomae
Birds of the World, “Royal Cinclodes (Cinclodes aricomae), version 1.0”. Remsen, Jr., J. V. and C. J. Sharpe (2020). (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA – https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.roycin1.01
Cotinga. Vol 43, pp102-104. Mamani-Cabana, Nicolas & Canales, Juan & Garnica, Carlos. (2021). “Northernmost record of the Critically Endangered Royal Cinclodes Cinclodes aricomae in Peru”. – https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353011491_Northernmost_record_of_the_Critically_Endangered_Royal_Cinclodes_Cinclodes_aricomae_in_Peru
IUCN – https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22724402/128905948
Mountain Research and Development v. 25 no.3, 287-289, (1 August 2005). Constantino Aucca and Paul M. Ramsay “Management of Biodiversity and Land Use in Southern Peru,” – https://doi.org/10.1659/0276-4741(2005)025[0287:MOBALU]2.0.CO;2
Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 290(1995). “Direct quantification of skeletal pneumaticity illuminates ecological drivers of a key avian trait.” Burton, M. G. P., Benson, R. B., & Field, D. J. (2023). – https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0160
Ornitología Neotropical vol. 25, issue 4 (2014); Avalos, Verónica del R., and M. Isabel Gómez. “Observations on nest site and parental care of the critically endangered Royal Cinclodes (Cinclodes aricomae) in Bolivia”. – https://armoniabolivia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Avalos-V-MI-Gomez.pdf
Sound Recording. Andrew Spencer. Xeno-Canto. XC677595. – http://www.xeno-canto.org/677595
Sound Recordings. Joseph Tobias and Nathalie Seddon. Xeno-Canto. XC73370. – http://www.xeno-canto.org/73370
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_cinclodes
Music 24:30
Pledge 30:43
I honor the lifeforce of the Royal Cinclodes. I will commit its name to my record. I am grateful to have shared time on our planet with this being. I lament the ways in which I and my species have harmed and diminished this species. I grieve.
And so, in the name of the Royal Cinclodes I pledge to reduce my consumption. And my carbon footprint. And curb my wastefulness. I pledge to acknowledge and attempt to address the costs of my actions and inactions. And I pledge to resist the harm of plant and animal kin and their habitat, by individuals, corporations, and governments.
I forever pledge my song to the witness and memory of all life, to a broad celebration of biodiversity, and to the total liberation of all beings.