Red-winged Tinamou

The Red-winged Tinamou, Rhynchotus rufescens, is a medium-sized ground-living bird from southern Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and northern Argentina. It lives in a variety of habitats depending on altitude. In lowland areas it favors marshy grasslands and savanna, at higher altitudes more arid and scrubby areas.

A large member of the Tinamou family, it has a curved bill and a black cap, with characteristic red primaries. Its diet varies by season, taking insects and other small animals in the summer, and switching to vegetable matter, such as fruits, shoots, tubers and bulbs, in the winter. It can be an agricultural pest, feeding on cereals, rice and peanuts, as well as being highly predatory, taking poisonous snakes and even jumping up into the air to snatch an insect off a leaf.

Like all tinamous, the Red-winged Tinamou is a popular target for hunters, and in areas of high human population density numbers have declined, but the species has also increased in some areas where forest clearance has created favorable habitat.