All species › Passerines › Tyrant flycatchers and allies › Hazel-fronted Pygmy Tyrant
Hazel-fronted Pygmy Tyrant | Pseudotriccus simplex
Bruinvoorhoofddwergtiran | Tiranuelo simple | Maria-de-testa-avelã
The Hazel-fronted Pygmy Tyrant is a small, olive tyrant flycatcher with a rufous-brown face, found only in the Yungas of south-eastern Peru and Bolivia. It lives hidden in the understorey of montane forest and, like its relatives, makes whirring sounds with its wings.
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Voice
A high, thin trill and short, sharp calls. Also a whirring wing sound and dry bill snaps.
Recording: Dan Lane — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
11 cm, with a short, flat bill and a rather long tail. The forehead, lores and face are rufous-brown, the rest of the upperparts olive-green. The wings and tail are dusky with rufous-brown edges. The throat and breast are olive, the belly yellowish olive. There are no wing bars. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Bronze-olive Pygmy Tyrant Pseudotriccus pelzelni is darker, without rufous-brown on the face, and occurs south to Puno. Rufous-headed Pygmy Tyrant Pseudotriccus ruficeps has an entirely orange-rufous head, including the crown and throat, and lives higher, in upper montane forest. Scale-crested Pygmy Tyrant Lophotriccus pileatus has a crest with rufous feather edges and a streaked breast.
Habitat
The dense understorey of humid lower montane and foothill forest, often with bamboo, roughly between 1000 and 2200 m. It catches small insects with short sallies to leaves and twigs, usually alone. The nest has been little described.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Peru: only in the south-east, on the east slope in Cuzco and Puno. Bolivia: in the Yungas of La Paz and Cochabamba. Absent from Colombia, Ecuador and the Galápagos. Does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search the understorey of montane forest at 1200–2000 m along roads in the Yungas of Cuzco and La Paz and listen for the whirring wing sound; the bird sits low and quietly and moves with short hops.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The range is small, but the species lives in a zone that still has much continuous forest.
Scientific name
Pseudotriccus simplex | (Berlepsch, 1901)
Berlepsch described the species in 1901 as Caenotriccus simplex; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Pseudotriccus was introduced in 1885 by Taczanowski & Berlepsch. The genus name comes from Greek pseudos, 'false', and trikkos, a small unidentified bird, used in ornithology for tyrant flycatchers. The species name comes from Latin simplex, 'plain', for the plain plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Sandillani, La Paz, Bolivia.