Bulletin 439 - Brazil 2023 #20 - Flycatchers Part 2

 After 3 trips to Colombia with diminishing returns, it was time to go further afield. Pablo Flores the guide in Colombia is now leading trips to Brazil as well. So my birding buddy Martin Jackson and my daughter Chantel and I decided to go there. We visited the Pantanal, the Atlantic forest in the Sao Paulo area and had 1 day in the Chapada. The Pantanal is the largest wetland in the world, so it is teeming with wildlife. The Atlantic Forest is a unique ecosystem from sea level to about 1 mile elevation. It contains 800 species of birds (225 endemic) and 26 species of primates. Unfortunately it also contains 2 mega cities - Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and the resulting sprawl and clearing for agriculture since the Portuguese arrived 500 years ago, has wiped out 90%+ of the original forest. About 250 species of amphibians, birds and mammals have gone extinct in the past 400 years. The good news is that many preserves and parks have been set aside to try and preserve the remaining biodiversity.

The Tyrant Flycatcher family has the most species of any of the bird families (447 currently). So as before on other trips you find a lot of them. This trip to Brazil was no different 21 species of which 16 were new for me.

The 7" male Long-tailed Tyrant (Colonia colonus) is another commonly encountered flycatcher and and an easy ID. He is all black except for a white crown. He has 2 long tail feathers. This one is the female as she is gray rather than black.

             

Long-tailed Tyrant - female

Another with a long tail is the 9" Shear-tailed Grey Tyrant (Muscipipra vetula). He is gray with black wings and a long forked tail.

Shear-tailed Grey Tyrant

The longest tail belongs to the 15" Streamer-tailed Tyrant (Gubernetes yetapa). He is another easy ID.

Streamer-tailed Tyrant

The 7.75" White-rumped Monjita (Xolmis velatus) is white with gray wings and tail.

White-rumped Monjita

Another white bird is the 6" Masked Water Tyrant (Fluvicola nengeta). He is white with dark wings and a black line through the eye. This may be a juvie with the brownish wings?

Masked Water Tyrant

The 5.5" Southern Tropical Pewee (Contopus cinereus) is a small gray flycatcher and best IDed by voice.

Southern Tropical Pewee

The 3" Eared Pygmy Tyrant (Myiornis auricularis) is too small and far away for much detail.

Eared Pygmy Tyrant

The 4" Sao Paulo Bristle Tyrant (Pogonotriccus paulista) has a green back and wings, yellowish below and yellow eye stripe. Interestingly, it was assigned to a different genus and English name in January 2024.

Sao Paulo Bristle Tyrant

The 7" Large Elaenia (Elaenia spectabilis) is another bird to recognize by voice as many elaenias look alike. He has his crest raised in response to the tape.

Large Elaenia

The last is the prettiest of this group. The 7.25" Cliff Flycatcher (Hirundinea ferruginea) is brown on the his head, back and wings with bright rufous wing patches, rump and underside.

Cliff Flycatcher

So with the 16 new flycatcher species on the trip, I have still only photographed 1/3 of the species in this largest family of birds.

I put the different bird/mammal families in single folders for easy viewing

I have photos of 149 of the 447 species of Tyrant Flycatchers

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald

dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2024 David McDonald

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Bulletin 240 - Ecuador #4 - Flycatchers

The tyrannidae family of birds known as tyrant flycatchers is the largest family of birds with about 430 species. All are in the New World. English names for that many species becomes a problem. There are phoebes, pewees, flycatchers, tyrants, and kingbirds. Because some of these are the smallest birds besides the hummingbirds, some are named for their small size. We have tody-flycatchers, tody-tyrants, tyrannulets, pygmy-tyrants, micro-tyrants, and nano-tyrants (just kidding on the last 2). 

Any visit to tropical America will produce a dozen or more species of flycatchers. Many of them are rather drab, so I will just show some of the more unusual or colorful of them. The sexes are similar in most species.

The 5" Cinnamon Flycatcher (Pyrrhomyias cinnamomeus) is the sole member of that genus. It has bright cinnamon underparts and wing patches.

Cinnamon Flycatcher 

The 4" Sooty-headed Tyrannulet (Phyllomyias griseiceps) has a gray head and bright yellow underparts. There are no wing bars.

Sooty-headed Tyrannulet

The 7" Dusky-capped Flycatcher (Myiarchus tuberculifer) also occurs in the western USA. It is typical of the genus with gray head and throat, brown back and yellow belly. This bird appears to have had some tail feathers chewed off.

Dusky-capped Flycatcher

The 5" Ornate Flycatcher (Myiotriccus ornatus) is another monotypic genus. As its name suggests, it should be attractive.  The gray head with white spot in front of the eye is distinctive.

Ornate Flycatcher

The 9" Long-tailed Tyrant (Colonia colonus) is black with a white crown and a couple of extended tail feathers. It is another monotypic genus.

Long-tailed Tyrant

The 4.75" Olive-chested Flycatcher (Myiophobus cryptoxanthus) is a rather dull flycatcher with wing bars. It had streaked brownish olive breast.

Olive-chested Flycatcher

There is a small group of 7 flycatchers called attilas (maybe for Attila the Hun?). The 8" Ochraceous Attila (Attila torridus) is bright rufous with black on the wings. It is listed as uncommon and the guide was excited that we found it.

Add caption

The 4" Scale-crested Pygmy-Tyrant (Lophotriccus pileatus) was a difficult bird to photograph. It kept moving around to the tape, but always landed behind leaves or branches, so that I never got a photo. Finally, when we were looking at another bird, one flew in and perched right in front on the camera. It is a cute little guy with an yellow-olive back, streaked white underparts, orange crest and white eye.

Scale-crested Pygmy-Tyrant

Bird Families...I have grouped my photos online by country and/or trip report. I now have a substantial number of photos of birds in several of the families and I know sometimes you would just like to see more of them in 1 place.

Click the link to take you to the gallery. Then you can hit ALL to see all the species or just click on the top left photo to  see the first photo and then click NEXT on the top or bottom right to scroll through.

Also, there is a SLIDE SHOW option that you can use that will scroll through all the photos automatically. This option is at the top right. You can select the interval of 1,3,5 or 10 seconds that each photo will be displayed, after you begin the slide show.

I have also put the scientific name and range of the bird below each photo. I will use the most colorful photo I have ...usually a male, but if I don't have that, then a female or juvenile.

Hummingbirds 72 species

Sandpipers 36 species

Plovers 10 species

Gulls, terns, skimmers 33 species

Trogons and Quetzals 7 species

New World Parrots 28 species

Woodpeckers 35 species

Tyrant Flycatchers 75 species

Thrushes 25 species

Tanagers 49 species

Cardinals 23 species

New World Warblers 64 species

Orioles, blackbirds 37 species

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2015 David McDonald

To have these trip reports sent to your email, please email me at the above address and ask to subscribe.

Bulletin 199 - Panama #7 - Tyrant Flycatchers

The tyrannidae family, aka Tyrant Flycatchers or New World Flycatchers is the largest family of birds with about 420 species. Many of them are fairly drab, but some are spectacular like the Vermilion Flycatcher or Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. We saw more than a dozen species in Panama. Many of them look alike and have to be IDed by voice. The smallest of these flycatchers are the tiniest birds in the world next to hummers. The sexes are similar except where noted in the descriptions.

I will start with the kiskadees and similar colored birds. The Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus) is a stunning 8.5" bird, with brown and rufous wings, bright yellow underparts and striped head. This bird does occur in the USA in south Texas. On reviewing our photos, I guess we didn't take any as we had some from Texas, so here is the bird.

Great Kiskadee

The Lesser Kiskadee (Pitangus lictor) is similar, but only 6.5" in length and it has much smaller bill. It also has less rufous on the wings.


Lesser Kiskadee

Another similar bird is the Boat-billed Flycatcher (Megarhynchus pitangus). It is also 8.5" in length, but has an even heavier bill than the Greater Kiskadee and lacks the rufous on the wings.



Boat-billed Flycatcher

The 4th similar bird is the Social Flycatcher (Myiozetetes similis). It is the size of the Lesser Kiskadee, but the crown and sides of face are dark brownish gray rather than black and the back is more olive.

Social Flycatcher

The last of this coloration is the Rusty-margined Flycatcher (Myiozetetes cayanensis). It is smaller still at 6", but has the black head, brown back and some rufous on the wings.

Rusty-margined Flycatcher

The Streaked Flycatcher (Myiodynastes maculatus) is another large (8") flycatcher. It is IDed by the streaked back and underparts and a rufous tail.

Streaked Flycatcher

The much smaller (5.5") but similar Piratic Flycatcher (Legatus leucophaius) lacks the streaking on the back and rufous tail. It has a much smaller bill as well.

Piratic Flycatcher

The Common Tody-Flycatcher (Todirostrum cinereum) is a tiny (4") bird with a black face, dark gray head and back and bright yellow underparts.

Common Tody-Flycatcher

The myiarchus genus is well represented in North America. The Panama Flycatcher (Myiarchus panamensis) has the typical coloration with a brown back, yellow belly and gray head and breast.

Panama Flycatcher

The Paltry Tyrannulet (Zimmerius vilissimus) is a tiny (4") flycatcher best IDed by voice. But it does have yellow wing edges and gray underparts that differ from other tiny flycatchers.

Paltry Tyrannulet

Elaenias are a group of small flycatchers that can be IDed by the median crown stripe on their head. The Forest Elaenia (Myiopagis gaimardii) can be IDed by narrow bill and yellow wing bars and wing edges.

Forest Elaenia

The Long-tailed Tyrant (Colonia colonus) is small (4.5") flycatcher with 2 elongated tail feathers (longer in males). It is black with a white stripe across the face and another down the back.

Long-tailed Tyrant

The Tropical Kingbird (Tyrannus melancholicus) is gray with yellow underparts. It lacks the white tail edges of the Western Kingbird which is the only other bird of this coloration in Panama. Also, the notched tail is diagnostic. This bird occurs along the southern border of USA.

Tropical Kingbird

Happy birding and photography,

David McDonald dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2014 David McDonald

To have these trip reports sent to your email, please email me at the above address and ask to subscribe.