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Grey-headed Piprites | Piprites griseiceps
Grijskopmanakin | Piprites cabecigrís
The Grey-headed Piprites is a stocky, olive-green and yellow Piprites with a grey head and a conspicuous white eye-ring. Despite its Dutch name it is not a true manakin; the genus is now placed with or next to the tyrant flycatchers. It lives high in humid forest of the Caribbean lowlands and foothills and is scarce everywhere. Its entire range lies within the guide area.
Voice
The song is a lively, fast series of clear, liquid whistles, often given from high in the forest; the singer itself is usually hard to find.
Recording: Scott Olmstead — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
12 cm. Head and neck grey with a broad, conspicuous white eye-ring. Upperparts olive-green, wings and tail olive without wing bars. Throat and breast yellowish with an olive-green wash across the breast, belly brighter yellow. Bill short and fairly broad. Stocky build with a large head. Sexes alike.
Confusion species
Lesser Greenlet Pachysylvia decurtata also has a grey head with a white eye-ring and olive-green upperparts, but is smaller and slimmer, with a more pointed bill and mainly whitish underparts. Sooty-headed Tyrannulet Phyllomyias griseiceps is smaller, lacks the white eye-ring and has a shorter, narrower bill. Females of true manakins lack the grey head.
Habitat
Middle and upper levels of humid evergreen lowland and foothill forest and tall forest edges, mostly below about 750 m. It often sits still on a branch for long periods and joins mixed-species flocks. It eats insects and small fruits.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Caribbean slope of Central America, from Honduras and Nicaragua to Costa Rica and extreme western Panama (Bocas del Toro). It does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In humid forest on the Caribbean slope, listen for the distinctive song from the canopy, then search the mixed flocks patiently for a motionless bird with a grey head and white eye-ring.
Conservation status
Not threatened according to the latest assessment, but rare and local with a small range; vulnerable to clearance of Caribbean lowland forest.
Scientific name
Piprites griseiceps | Salvin, 1865
Salvin described the species in 1865 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Piprites was introduced in 1847 by Cabanis. Piprites is formed from Pipra (manakins) and Greek -itēs 'resembling': 'manakin-like', after its manakin-like appearance. griseiceps is Latin, from griseus 'grey' and -ceps '-headed', after the grey head. The specimen the first description was based on came from Tucurrique, Costa Rica.