Yellow-chinned Spinetail / Geelkeelstekelstaart, Fityo

Yellow-chinned Spinetail (Certhiaxis cinnamomea)

Pictures (click on them to enlarge)
© Pieter Verheij	© John S. Dunning	© Erik Toorman
© Paul van Giersbergen	© Harry Valk	© Harry Valk
© Hans Dankbaar	© Raoul Ribot	© Erik Toorman
© Dominiek Plouvier

Yellow-chinned Spinetail: A small and inconspicious bird, that is better known for its song and nest then for its looks. It lives hidden between long grasses along watercourses and in marshes. Often the most you see, is the movement of the grass, while you hear its unmistakable song: long and vibrating, it lasts for more then ten seconds and fades away at the end, as if the spinetail were out of breath. Good places to hear it are at Leiding, Weg naar Zee or along the Vijfde Rijweg. If you can imitate the sound of the yellow-chinned spinetail (link below) it will come near. Otherwise it is rather shy.
The nest is big with respect to the bird. It is made from rather thick twigs, it is round with a long entrance tube. It is hard to imagine a small bird making such a building for itself. The Yellow-throated Spinetail eats insects that it find between the grass stalks, often feeding in couples with some young, just out of the nest. The young do not yet have a yellow marking on their throat, but even with the adults this is difficult to see. Sometimes an egg of a striped cuckoo gets into their nest. How a female cuckoo performs such an act (passing the entrance tube), I don't know.
First photo by Pieter Verhey of a bird with an spider, maybe going to its nest, in January 2007 and one by J.S. Dunning, both made in Suriname and a picture made by Erik Toorman in July 2007 at Pomona in Suriname. At Leonsberg Paul van Giersbergen photographed the spinetail in September 2014 with a clearly visible yellow patch on the chin.
Dominiek Plouvier made the two videos.

Birdsounds (click on them to listen)
Sound recording of a Yellow-chinned Spinetail © Jan Hein Ribot

Video (click the link or the 'play'-button to see)
Video recording of a Yellow-chinned Spinetail © ;	Video recording of a Yellow-chinned Spinetail © ;

Distribution

Each small square indicates the observation of at least one (group) of these birds, the medium ones at least four observations on different days and the largest ones ten or more. The color of each square indicates: blue for coastal area, yellow for savanna and red for rainforest.
Not all places in Suriname have been equally often visited by birders, so the distribution of the squares gives an indication of the whereabouts of the birds, but also of the birders. Some places deep in the south have no reported bird observations, by experienced birders, within 60 kilometer.

Abundance in different areas
coastal zone (blue dots on the map) :
northern savannas (yellow dots (in the north)) :
rainforest under 400 m (red dots) :
rainforest above 400 m (red dots) :
Sipaliwini savanna (yellow dots (in the south)) :
A blank is shown if not convincingly reported in the zone. Data interpreted by Arie Spaans, Otte Ottema and Jan Hein Ribot.

Names
Scientific name:	Certhiaxis cinnamomea
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Furnariidae, 37 in Suriname
Dutch:	Geelkeelstekelstaart, Fityo
English:	Yellow-chinned Spinetail
Sranan ('Surinamese'):	Fityo
Guyana:	Rootie
Papiamento:
Spanish (Venezuela):	Güitíl;o de agua
Portugese (Brazil):	Curutié
Arowak:
Carib:
French:	Synallaxe à gorge jaune

Observations through the year	Observations of breeding through the year

The 742 reported observations of this bird in Suriname, mainly for the last 50 years up to 2018, have been grouped by month. More birds on one day are counted as one observation. Of course, if the graph should depict the total number of birds seen, the differences between the months could be much more pronounced.	The 225 reported breeding observations of this bird in Suriname. Most observations are about nest with eggs, some about fledglings, or feeding at a nest or the building of a nest. Of the about 5000 nests and eggs found for all species together, about 1/3 comes from the egg collection of Penard between 1896 and 1905. For some reason most collecting then was done in the first half of each year, so the shown distribution does not necessarily reflect the actual breeding preferences. The main dry season in Suriname is reckoned to be from half August to the end of November, the main wet season from half April to half August, but the the timing of begin and end does vary from year to year. Around March a second dry season often occurs.

Observations through the year

Observations of breeding through the year

The 742 reported observations of this bird in Suriname, mainly for the last 50 years up to 2018, have been grouped by month. More birds on one day are counted as one observation. Of course, if the graph should depict the total number of birds seen, the differences between the months could be much more pronounced.

The 225 reported breeding observations of this bird in Suriname. Most observations are about nest with eggs, some about fledglings, or feeding at a nest or the building of a nest.

Of the about 5000 nests and eggs found for all species together, about 1/3 comes from the egg collection of Penard between 1896 and 1905. For some reason most collecting then was done in the first half of each year, so the shown distribution does not necessarily reflect the actual breeding preferences.
The main dry season in Suriname is reckoned to be from half August to the end of November, the main wet season from half April to half August, but the the timing of begin and end does vary from year to year. Around March a second dry season often occurs.

Last update: September 2024 by Jan Hein Ribot. Please mail your comments, photos to: jhribot ( residing at ) gmail (point!) com.
observations can be uploaded to suriname.observation.org or ebird.org ).