All species › Passerines › Tyrant flycatchers and allies › Pearly-vented Tody-Tyrant
Pearly-vented Tody-Tyrant | Hemitriccus margaritaceiventer
Witbuiktodietiran | Titirijí perlado | Sebinho-de-olho-de-ouro
The Pearly-vented Tody-Tyrant is a small, drab tyrant of dry woodland and scrub. It has a pale golden-yellow iris and white underparts with grey streaks on the throat and breast. In the guide area it occurs in the Caribbean lowlands of Colombia, in dry Andean valleys and in eastern Bolivia.
Voice
Dry, frog-like rattles and series of ticking notes, such as tik-tik-trrrr.
Recording: Aran Rodrigues Cardoso — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
10 cm, with a flat bill and a fairly short tail. The upperparts are greyish olive to brownish, the wings dark with two pale wing bars and pale edgings. The iris is pale yellow to orange-yellow. The underparts are white, with narrow grey streaks on the throat and breast; the flanks and undertail coverts are sometimes tinged pale yellowish. Birds from the Andean valleys are somewhat more olive. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Pale-eyed Pygmy Tyrant Atalotriccus pilaris is very similar and also has a pale iris, but is greener above and has a yellower belly. Stripe-necked Tody-Tyrant Hemitriccus striaticollis has white spectacles, a dark iris and a yellow belly. Common Tody-Flycatcher Todirostrum cinereum has a dark head and bright yellow underparts.
Habitat
Dry forest, Chaco and Chiquitano woodland, cerrado, scrub in savanna and dry Andean valleys, also forest edges and gardens with trees, from the lowlands to over 2000 m in the Andean valleys. It forages alone or in pairs low to mid-level for insects, which it picks from leaves with short sallies.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Colombia: in dry regions in the north and north-east. Peru: locally in dry valleys on the eastern side of the Andes, in the north (including the Marañón and Huallaga area) and in the south. Bolivia: widespread in the east and south and in dry Andean valleys. Absent from Ecuador and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in Venezuela, Brazil, Paraguay and northern Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search dry forest around Santa Cruz de la Sierra or in the dry valleys of Cochabamba; listen for the dry rattles from dense scrub and look for the pale iris.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species has a large range and also uses secondary growth.
Scientific name
Hemitriccus margaritaceiventer | (d'Orbigny, ACVMD & de Lafresnaye, 1837)
D'Orbigny, ACVMD & de Lafresnaye described the species in 1837 as T[odirostrum] margaritaceiventer; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Hemitriccus was introduced in 1860 by Cabanis & Heine. The genus name comes from Greek hēmi-, 'half, small', and trikkos, an unidentified small bird, used by ornithologists for tyrant flycatchers. The species name comes from Latin margaritaceus, 'pearly', and venter, 'belly'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Chiquitos, Santa Cruz, Bolivia.