Wren-like Rushbird

The wren-like rushbird is 13 to 14 cm (5.1 to 5.5 in) long and weighs 11 to 16 g (0.39 to 0.56 oz). It is a small furnariid whose plumage closely resembles that of the wholly unrelated marsh wren (Cistothorus palustris). It has a longish slightly decurved bill. The sexes' plumages are essentially alike though females are slightly paler than males. Adults of the nominate subspecies P. m. melanops have a wide buff supercilium, grayish lores, a dark brown band behind the eye, mottled dark brown ear coverts, and a buff malar area. Their crown is blackish with wide brown streaks. They have a buff-brown collar with few streaks. Their back is blackish with rich brown streaks and obvious white feather shafts. Their rump and uppertail coverts are also rich brown, with some blackish inclusions in the latter. Their tail's innermost pair of feathers are rich brown and the rest blackish brown with buffy to tawny tips; the last few centimeters of the innermost two pairs have bare shafts. Their wing coverts and wings are blackish; the former have wide chestnut tips and the latter chestnut and rufous edges that together form a wide band on the closed wing. Their throat is white, their breast and belly buffy whitish, their sides and flanks dull brown, and their undertail coverts a mix of tawny-buff and white. …

The subspecies of the wren-like rushbird are found thus:

P. m. brunnescens: coastal western Peru between the Piura and Ica departments P. m. schoenobaenus: departments of Junín and Puno in central and southern Peru, departments of La Paz and Oruro in western Bolivia, and Jujuy Province in far northwestern Argentina P. m. loaensis: coastal in southern Peru's Department of Arequipa and northern Chile south to the Antofagasta Region P. m. melanops: from southern Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state south and west through Uruguay, central Chile, and most of Argentina; northern Argentina and Paraguay in the non-breeding season. The wren-like rushbird inhabits freshwater and brackish marshes and the edges of lakes, all with emergent aquatic vegetation. It especially favors beds of Scirpus sedges. In elevation it ranges from sea level to 4,300 m (14,100 ft).

The wren-like rushbird feeds on arthropods. It forages by gleaning from floating or emergent vegetation and also from mud in the marsh.