All species › Passerines › Tyrant flycatchers and allies › Golden-winged Tody-Flycatcher
Golden-winged Tody-Flycatcher | Poecilotriccus calopterus
Goudvleugelschoffelsnavel | Titirijí alidorado | Ferreirinho-de-asa-dourada
The Golden-winged Tody-Flycatcher is a small tyrant with a black head, yellow underparts and a large yellow patch on the wing. It lives in dense thickets at forest edges in western Amazonia in Colombia, Ecuador and northern Peru.
Voice
A short, dry rattle, often introduced by one or two sharp notes, as in tik-trrrrr.
Recording: Jerome Fischer — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
9.5 cm, with a flat, broad bill. The head is black, the chin and throat white. The back is olive. The wings are black with a large golden-yellow patch on the wing coverts and yellow edges to the tertials. The underparts are bright yellow. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Black-headed Tody-Flycatcher Todirostrum nigriceps also has a black head and yellow underparts, but no yellow wing patch; it stays high in the treetops. Yellow-browed Tody-Flycatcher Todirostrum chrysocrotaphum has a yellow eyebrow and likewise lacks a wing patch. The male Black-and-white Tody-Flycatcher Poecilotriccus capitalis has white underparts.
Habitat
Dense shrubs, vine tangles and regrowth at the edges of humid lowland and foothill forest, in overgrown clearings and along streams, up to about 1000 m. It forages low in the vegetation for insects with short sallies to the foliage.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Colombia: the south-east, east of the Andes in Putumayo, Caquetá and surroundings. Ecuador: the Amazonian lowlands and the lower eastern slope. Peru: the north, north of the Amazon and the Marañón. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area possibly in extreme western Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search dense thickets along forest edges and roads in the lowlands of eastern Ecuador; listen for the short rattle and look for the yellow wing patch when the bird perches in the open for a moment.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species has a fairly large range and tolerates secondary vegetation.
Scientific name
Poecilotriccus calopterus | (Sclater, 1857)
Sclater described the species in 1857 as Todirostrum calopterum; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Poecilotriccus was introduced in 1884 by Berlepsch. The genus name comes from Greek poikilos, 'variegated, pied', and trikkos, a small unidentified bird, used in ornithology for tyrant flycatchers. The species name comes from Greek kalos, 'fair', and pteron, 'wing', for the golden wing patch. The specimen the first description was based on came from Río Napo, Ecuador.