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Long-tailed Tyrant | Colonia colonus
Langstaarttiran | Tirano colilargo
The Long-tailed Tyrant is a small, black flycatcher with a pale head and two greatly elongated central tail feathers. Pairs often perch at the top of a bare, dead tree at a forest edge or clearing. In the guide area it lives from Honduras to Panama.
Voice
A soft, rising whistled sweee, often repeated a few times, and soft, short calls.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13 cm excluding the elongated central tail feathers, which in the male project about 10 cm beyond the rest of the tail; in the female they are shorter. Mostly sooty black. Forehead and supercilium white, crown and nape grey to greyish-white. In Central America a whitish stripe down the centre of the back, often hard to see. Bill short and black.
Confusion species
With its combination of black plumage, pale head and long central tail feathers it is almost unmistakable. Young birds and moulting birds with a short tail can be recognised by the black plumage with a pale head and the perch high on a dead branch.
Habitat
Edges and clearings of humid lowland and foothill forest, felled areas with standing dead trees, riverbanks and pasture bordering forest. It sallies for flying insects from a high, bare branch, often returning to the same perch. It nests in old woodpecker holes or other tree cavities.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Caribbean slope of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, up into the foothills; in Panama on both slopes, on the Pacific side mainly in the east. Outside the guide area widespread in South America, to north-eastern Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Scan the tops of bare, dead trees along forest edges and clearings; the birds often sit there for a long time in the same place, usually in pairs.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Fairly common in suitable habitat; locally benefits from clearings with dead trees, but needs forest nearby.
Scientific name
Colonia colonus | (Vieillot, 1818)
Vieillot described the species in 1818 as Muscicapa colonus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Colonia was introduced in 1828 by Gray. Colonia derives from 'El Colon', the name Spanish settlers in Paraguay gave this bird, recorded by Félix de Azara in 1805. colonus is Latin for 'farmer, colonist', after 'El Colon', the name Spanish settlers in Paraguay and Argentina gave the bird. The specimen the first description was based on came from Paraguay.