All species › Passerines › Tyrant flycatchers and allies › Fuscous Flycatcher
Fuscous Flycatcher | Cnemotriccus fuscatus
Vinktiran | Mosquero parduzco | Guaracavuçu
The Fuscous Flycatcher is a brown, plainly marked tyrant of the understorey of scrub and forest edge in the lowlands. It has a long pale supercilium and two pale wing bars. In Amazonia it lives mainly in young scrub on river islands and along banks. Birds from the south of the range move north in the austral winter.
Voice
A short, clear series of rising notes and a dry, sharp chip. It sings mainly in the twilight of early morning.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
14–15 cm, with a fairly long tail and a narrow, dark bill. The upperparts are plain dark greyish brown to olive-brown. A long, whitish to buff supercilium extends behind the eye. The wings have two pale buff wing bars. The throat is whitish, the breast brownish grey and the belly dull white to pale yellow. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Euler's Flycatcher Lathrotriccus euleri is more olive, with a pale eye-ring and a short pale spot in front of the eye instead of a long supercilium, and has a paler lower mandible. Bran-colored Flycatcher Myiophobus fasciatus is smaller, more rufous-brown, with a streaked breast. Alder Flycatcher Empidonax alnorum and Willow Flycatcher Empidonax traillii are greener, with a narrow eye-ring and a pale lower mandible, and occur only in the northern winter. Southern Tropical Pewee Contopus cinereus perches upright on open branches, is greyer and has no supercilium.
Habitat
Dense scrub, young growth on river islands and along banks, várzea, forest edge and secondary forest in the lowlands; in Bolivia also in dry forest and shrubby savanna. Mostly below 1000 m. It perches low to mid-level in the vegetation, often hidden, and catches insects in short sallies to leaves and twigs. The nest is an open cup in a cavity or among roots and branches.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Colombia: mainly in the lowlands east of the Andes. Ecuador: in the east. Peru: in the Amazonian lowlands. Bolivia: in the lowlands of the north and east; birds that move north in the austral winter also breed there. Absent from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in Venezuela, Trinidad, the Guianas, Brazil, Paraguay and northern Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search the scrub of river islands and banks for a brown tyrant with a long pale supercilium sitting low and hidden in the vegetation. In the early morning its song reveals its presence.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Widespread and locally common in riverside growth and secondary forest.
Scientific name
Cnemotriccus fuscatus | (Wied-Neuwied, 1831)
Wied-Neuwied described the species in 1831 as M[uscipeta] fuscata; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Cnemotriccus was introduced in 1927 by Hellmayr. The genus name comes from Greek knēmos, 'mountain slope', and trikkos, an unidentified small bird (in ornithology: tyrant flycatcher); the type species was described from the hilly coastal woodlands of south-eastern Brazil. Latin fuscatus, 'darkened, dusky', after the dull brown plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (probably).