All species › Passerines › Tyrant flycatchers and allies › Rufous-bellied Bush Tyrant
Rufous-bellied Bush Tyrant | Myiotheretes fuscorufus
Roodbuikstruiktiran | Alinaranja ventrirrufa | Tirano-arbustivo-de-barriga-ruiva
The Rufous-bellied Bush Tyrant is a medium-sized flycatcher of the upper montane forests on the eastern slope of the Andes of Peru and Bolivia. It combines brown upperparts with a rufous belly and shows much cinnamon in the wing in flight. It usually lives in pairs at forest edges close to the treeline.
Voice
Poorly documented. Usually silent; gives soft, whistled calls.
Recording: Nick Athanas — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
19–20 cm, with a straight, black bill. The upperparts are dark greyish brown, with a pale buff supercilium. The throat is paler, the breast brownish and the belly and undertail coverts are rufous to cinnamon. The wings are dark with two cinnamon wingbars; in flight a large cinnamon patch in the primaries stands out. The tail is dark with a cinnamon base to the outer feathers. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Smoky Bush Tyrant Myiotheretes fumigatus is uniformly sooty brown, without the rufous belly and wingbars. Streak-throated Bush Tyrant Myiotheretes striaticollis is larger, with a clearly streaked throat. Rufous-breasted Chat-Tyrant Ochthoeca rufipectoralis is much smaller, with a white supercilium, a rufous breast band and a whitish belly.
Habitat
Edges of humid montane forest and cloud forest, the treeline, shrubby slopes and Polylepis groves, roughly between 2500 and 3600 m. It perches on a lookout on a shrub or tree and catches insects in the air or on the ground. The nest is a cup of moss and plant material in a tree or shrub.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Peru: on the eastern slope of the Andes, from the north or centre of the country south to Puno. Bolivia: on the eastern slope in 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 at the upper forest edge and near the treeline, for example along the roads to Manu in Peru or in the Yungas above La Paz; in flight look for the cinnamon wing patch.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species has a limited range and low densities; burning and grazing at the treeline degrade its habitat locally.
Scientific name
Myiotheretes fuscorufus | (Sclater & Salvin, 1876)
Sclater & Salvin described the species in 1876 as Ochthodiaeta fuscorufus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Myiotheretes was introduced in 1850 by Reichenbach. The genus name comes from Greek muia, 'fly', and thērētēs, 'hunter': a fly-hunter. Latin fuscus, 'dusky', and rufus, 'rufous', for the dark upperparts and rufous underparts. The specimen the first description was based on came from Tilotilo, Yungas, La Paz, Bolivia.