Pale-breasted Spinetail

The pale-breasted spinetail is 13 to 16 cm (5.1 to 6.3 in) long and weighs 9 to 17 g (0.32 to 0.60 oz). It is slightly smaller and has a shorter bill than most other members of genus Synallaxis. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies S. a. albescens have a pale brownish gray face with an even paler line through the eye. Their forehead is olive grayish brown and their crown dark rufous, often with slight mottling. Their back, rump and uppertail coverts are olive-brown. Their wing coverts are rufous and their flight feathers tawny-brownish. Their tail is olive-brown with a variable rufescent tinge on the outer feathers; it is graduated and the feathers have somewhat pointed tips. Their throat is whitish with black flecks in its lower part. Their breast is pale buffy gray, their belly a paler buffy gray, and their flanks and undertail coverts browner than the belly. Their iris is yellowish to light brown or brown, their maxilla black to dark gray, their mandible blackish to gray (sometimes with a dark tip to the gray), and their legs and feet yellowish brown to grayish olive or brownish yellow. …

The subspecies of the pale-breasted spinetail are found thus:

S. a. latitabunda: southwestern Costa Rica and the Pacific coasts of southern Panama and northwestern Colombia S. a. insignis: northern and central Colombia and Venezuela's Apure state S. a. occipitalis: mountains of north-central Colombia and northwestern Venezuela S. a. littoralis: coastal northern Colombia S. a. perpallida: Colombia's Guajira Peninsula and far northwestern Venezuela S. a. nesiotis: Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta east into northern Venezuela; also Isla Margarita S. a. trinitatis: Trinidad and eastern Venezuela S. a. josephinae: southern Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and northern Brazil's Roraima state S. a. inaequalis: French Guiana and north-central and northeastern Brazil S. a. albescens: eastern and southern Brazil from Maranhão and Pernambuco to Mato Grosso and Paraná, eastern Paraguay, and northeastern Argentina's Misiones Province S. a. australis: southeastern Peru's Department of Madre de Dios, central and eastern Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina south to La Pampa and Buenos Aire provinces, and western Uruguay. The pale-breasted spinetail inhabits a wide variety of open grassy landscapes. These include savanna, cerrado, campo rupestre, shrub-steppe, brushy areas in woodlands, pastures, and the edges of secondary forest, marshes, and roadsides. …

The pale-breasted spinetail feeds on a wide variety of arthropods, and also includes small snails in its diet. It usually forages in pairs, gleaning prey from grass, foliage, small branches, and at times the ground. It usually stays below about 2 m (7 ft) of the ground.