Rufous Hornero Gallery

Furnarius rufus

The Birds of the World Website introduces the Rufous Hornero with this descriptive information:  Rufous Hornero are residents of second growth scrub and pastureland from central Brazil west to Bolivia and south to southern Argentina.  Noted more for their distinctive nests than for their appearance, Rufous Hornero are large ovenbirds with rufescent brown upperparts, light rufous supercilia, and tawny breast and underparts.  Rufous Hornero feed predominantly on insects such as beetles, crickets, ants, and termites, which they capture while foraging on the ground.  Rufous Hornero are incredible architects that build domed nests out of mud and straw; these nests  are 20 to 30 cm in diameter and 20 to 25 cm tall.  The nests of the Rufous Hornero are almost never reused by the pair that built them, making these nests readily accessible to other birds and animals as nest locations and shelter.

I saw, and photographed, my first Rufous Hornero on the morning of August 21, 2023. I was walking a trail in Parque Mãe Bonifácia in Cuiabá, Brazil when I spotted one of their distinctive nests up in a tree.  As I looked at the nest through my binoculars, I realized there was a bird on top of it, which turned out to be a Rufous Hornero.  During the rest of my trip in the Pantanal, I saw many more of these distinctive nests!  Look here to see the details of my trip to Brazil that included the sighting of this bird.  Here are a couple of photos I took that morning.