All species › Passerines › Gnatwrens and gnatcatchers › Slate-throated Gnatcatcher
Slate-throated Gnatcatcher | Polioptila schistaceigula
Grijskeelmuggenvanger | Perlita pizarrosa | Balança-rabo-de-garganta-cinza
Slate-throated Gnatcatcher is a dark grey gnatcatcher of humid forest on the Pacific side of Colombia and Ecuador. Unlike most gnatcatchers it has a grey rather than a white throat and breast. It lives high in the trees and moves restlessly through the outer foliage.
Voice
The song is a series of high, thin notes or a fast, thin trill. The call is a soft, nasal, mewing note, similar to that of other gnatcatchers.
Recording: Olaf Jahn — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
11 cm, with a thin, straight bill and a long tail. The head and upperparts are dark slate grey, with a narrow, broken white eye-ring. The throat and breast are also slate grey and meet the white belly sharply. The tail is black, with narrow white tips to the outer tail feathers, so there is less white in the tail than in related species. The sexes are alike. Juveniles are duller.
Confusion species
White-browed Gnatcatcher Polioptila bilineata, which lives in the same part of Colombia and Ecuador, has a white throat and white underparts, a white face and much white in the tail; the male has a black crown. It lives more often at forest edges, in drier forest and in semi-open country. Gnatwrens (Microbates, Ramphocaenus) are brown, with a longer bill, and live in the undergrowth.
Habitat
Canopy and edges of humid and very wet forest in the lowlands and Andean foothills, mostly below 1000 m, locally slightly higher. It searches the outer foliage for small insects and spiders, usually in pairs and often with mixed flocks. The nest is a small, lichen-covered cup on a branch high in a tree.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia in the Pacific lowlands and on the western slope of the Western Andes, with outliers towards the northern end of the Andes. In Ecuador in the north-west. Absent from Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in eastern Panama.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the Chocó of Colombia and north-western Ecuador, scan the canopy along forest edges and roads through humid forest, especially at mixed flocks. Look for a small grey bird with a long, constantly moving tail and a dark throat.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species depends on humid forest; deforestation in the Chocó region and in western Ecuador has reduced its habitat locally.
Scientific name
Polioptila schistaceigula | Hartert, 1898
Hartert described the species in 1898 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Polioptila was introduced in 1855 by Sclater. The genus name comes from Greek polios, 'grey', and ptilon, 'feather'. The species name comes from New Latin schistaceus, 'slate-coloured', and Latin gula, 'throat': 'slate-throated'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cachaví, Esmeraldas, Ecuador.