Many-striped Canastero

The many-striped canastero is 16 to 17 cm (6.3 to 6.7 in) long and weighs 17 to 27 g (0.60 to 0.95 oz). It is a large canastero and the most dramatically striped of them. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a buff-whitish supercilium on an otherwise dark brownish face with buff to whitish streaks. Their forehead is bright tawny-brown or rufescent brown with dark brown stripes that widen to become the brown crown with rufescent streaks. Their upperparts from back to uppertail coverts are dark brown with conspicuous pale buff streaks. Their wing coverts are dark brown with rufous edges and the flight feathers reddish-rufous with dark fuscous tips. Their tail feathers have dark brown inner webs, rufous outer webs, and are narrow producing a spiny appearance. Their chin and upper throat are orange-buff to orange-rufous that fades and becomes duller on their lower throat. Their breast and flanks are whitish with bold dark brown streaks that become paler and less bold on the whitish belly. Their lower flanks and undertail coverts are rufescent brown with indistinct pale streaks. Their iris is brown to dark brown, their maxilla black to dark horn, their mandible black to dark brownish with a blue-gray to gray base, and their legs and feet brown to olive to greenish gray. Juveniles have a fainter throat patch and less distinct streaks than adults. …

The many-striped canastero has a disjunct distribution. The five subspecies are found thus:

A. f. multostriata: Colombia's Eastern Andes between the departments of Norte de Santander and Cundinamarca A. f. quindiana: Colombia's Central Andes between the departments of Caldas and Cauca A. f. flammulata: from Nariño Department in Colombia's Western Andes south in the Andes through Ecuador just into northern Peru's Department of Cajamarca A. f. pallida: Andes of northern Peru's Cajamarca and La Libertad departments A. f. taczanowskii: Andes of northern and central Peru from southern Amazonas and Cajamarca departments south to Ancash and Junín departments The many-striped canastero inhabits the ecotone between timberline and páramo grasslands, a landscape characterized by rock outcrops, scattered shrubs, Espeletia, and groves of Polylepis trees. In elevation it mostly ranges between 3,000 and 4,500 m (9,800 and 14,800 ft) but occurs as low as 2,700 m (8,900 ft) in Colombia.

The many-striped canastero feeds on arthropods. It forages singly or in pairs, typically by gleaning prey mostly from the ground and also from shrubs and Polylepis branches.