The Bicolored Conebill, Conirostrum bicolor, is a small passerine

Passerine

A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species, it has roughly...

 bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

. This member of the tanager

Tanager

The tanagers comprise the bird family Thraupidae, in the order Passeriformes. The family has an American distribution.There were traditionally about 240 species of tanagers, but the taxonomic treatment of this family's members is currently in a state of flux...

 family is a resident breeder in South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 from Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

, Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

 and Trinidad

Trinidad

Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...

 south and east to the Guianas, northeast Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 and Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

.

Its habitat is coastal mangrove

Mangrove

Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...

 swamps and neighbouring woodlands. The small feather-lined cup nest is built in a mangrove tree, and the normal clutch is two brown-blotched buff eggs. Nests are often parasitised

Brood parasite

Brood parasites are organisms that use the strategy of brood parasitism, a kind of kleptoparasitism found among birds, fish or insects, involving the manipulation and use of host individuals either of the same or different species to raise the young of the brood-parasite...

 by Shiny Cowbird

Shiny Cowbird

The Shiny Cowbird, Molothrus bonariensis, is a passerine bird in the New World family Icteridae. It breeds in most of South America apart from the most dense jungles, mountains and deserts , the coldest southernmost regions , and on Trinidad and Tobago...

s.

The Bicolored Conebill is 11.4 cm long and weighs 11 g. The adult is grey-blue above and buff-tinged grey below, with red eyes, pink legs and a sharp, pointed bill. The primary flight feathers are bluish with brown edgings. The sexes are similar, although the female may be a little duller, but immature birds are greenish above and have pale yellow underparts. Birds sometimes breed in immature plumage.

These warbler-like

Wood Warbler

The Wood Warbler is a common and widespread leaf warbler which breeds throughout northern and temperate Europe, and just into the extreme west of Asia in the southern Ural Mountains...

 birds eat mainly insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s and occasionally seeds. The Bicolored Conebill’s call is a thin tseep.