All species › Passerines › Tyrant flycatchers and allies › Flavescent Flycatcher
Flavescent Flycatcher | Myiophobus flavicans
Goudtiran | Mosquerito flavescente | Filipe-amarelado
The Flavescent Flycatcher is a small olive-and-yellow tyrant of the montane forest of the northern and central Andes. It lives in the lower and middle levels of the forest and shows yellow spectacles around the eye. Of the Myiophobus flycatchers in the guide area it lives at the highest elevations.
Voice
High, thin tsip calls and a short, rapid series of sharp notes such as tsi-tsi-tsi-tsit.
Recording: Juan Freile — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
13 cm, with a short, flat bill with a pale lower mandible. The upperparts are olive-green, with yellow lores and a broken yellow eye-ring that together form spectacles. The underparts are yellow, with an olive wash on the breast. The wings have two ochre-yellow wing bars. Males have a concealed yellow-orange crown patch. Juveniles are duller, with paler wing bars.
Confusion species
Orange-crested Flycatcher Myiophobus phoenicomitra is smaller and darker, with weaker spectacles, and lives lower in the foothills. Roraiman Flycatcher Myiophobus roraimae is browner, with rufous wing bars. Bran-colored Flycatcher Myiophobus fasciatus is brown, with a streaked breast, and lives in open scrub. Olive-chested Flycatcher Myiophobus cryptoxanthus has a brownish-olive streaked breast and lives lower on the eastern slope.
Habitat
Humid montane forest and cloud forest, mainly in the understorey and middle levels, forest edges and old secondary forest, roughly between 1300 and 2800 m. It perches quietly and catches insects with short sallies to leaves or in the air; often in mixed flocks. The nest is a small cup, low in vegetation or against a vegetated bank.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Colombia: in all three Andean ranges. Ecuador: on both slopes of the Andes. Peru: on the eastern slope of the Andes, south to the south of the country. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in the Andes of Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the lower levels of cloud forest watch for a small yellow tyrant with yellow spectacles that sits still and suddenly sallies for an insect; it often joins mixed flocks along forest trails.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species depends on montane forest, but tolerates forest edges and secondary forest.
Scientific name
Myiophobus flavicans | (Sclater, 1861)
Sclater described the species in 1861 as Myiobius flavicans; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Myiophobus was introduced in 1850 by Reichenbach. The genus name comes from Greek muia, 'fly', and phobos, 'terror, fear'. The species name comes from Latin flavicans, 'yellowish'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Pallatanga, Chimborazo, Ecuador.