All species › Passerines › Tyrant flycatchers and allies › Bright-rumped Attila
Bright-rumped Attila | Attila spadiceus
Goudstuitattila | Atila polimorfo | Capitão-de-saíra-amarelo
The Bright-rumped Attila is the most widespread attila of the guide area, present in humid forest on both sides of the Andes. It occurs in a grey, an olive and a rufous morph, but always has a yellow rump and a streaked breast. Its loud, rising whistled song is one of the standard sounds of lowland forest.
Voice
A loud series of whistled two-note phrases that grows louder and faster and ends with a falling note, roughly bee-rup, bee-rup, bee-rup, bee-RUP, bee-reeoo. It sings a lot, also in the middle of the day, from a hidden perch in the middle storey.
Recording: Juan Freile — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
18–20 cm, with a large head, a heavy hooked bill with a pale base and a red to orange iris. The upperparts vary from olive-green to grey or rufous-brown; the rump is bright yellow to ochre-yellow. The throat and breast are yellowish or greyish with dark streaks, the belly whitish to pale yellow. The wing shows two faint, pale wing bars. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Ochraceous Attila Attila torridus of the western lowlands is uniform cinnamon-ochre, without breast streaks. Citron-bellied Attila Attila citriniventris of the eastern lowlands has a grey head, a rufous back and a plain yellow belly. Cinnamon Attila Attila cinnamomeus and White-eyed Attila Attila bolivianus are plain rufous and unstreaked. Myiarchus flycatchers such as Dusky-capped Flycatcher Myiarchus tuberculifer are slimmer, with a dark iris and no yellow rump.
Habitat
Humid lowland and hill forest, forest edge, older secondary forest and shady plantations, from sea level to about 1500 m, locally higher. It sits still for long periods in the middle storey and snatches large insects, spiders, small frogs and lizards. The nest is a cup of moss and fibres in a cavity in a tree trunk, an epiphyte or a steep bank.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Colombia: widespread in the Pacific lowlands, the north, the Magdalena Valley and the lowlands east of the Andes. Ecuador: in the western and eastern lowlands and foothills. Peru: in the north-west (Tumbes) and in the lowlands and foothills east of the Andes. Bolivia: in the lowlands and Yungas foothills of the north and centre. Absent from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area from Mexico to Panama, in Venezuela, the Guianas, Amazonian Brazil and the Atlantic Forest.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Follow the loud whistled series to the middle storey of forest edges and look for an upright bird with a yellow rump; it moves little and often sits behind leaves.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species is widespread and tolerates older secondary forest and shade plantations, but disappears where the forest is cleared completely.
Scientific name
Attila spadiceus | (Gmelin, 1789)
Gmelin described the species in 1789 as [Muscicapa] spadicea; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Attila was introduced in 1831 by Lesson. The genus name refers to Attila the Hun, who attacked Rome and Orléans in the 5th century. The species name comes from Latin spadiceus, 'date-brown, chestnut-brown'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cayenne, French Guiana.