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Olive-sided Flycatcher | Contopus cooperi
Sparrenpiewie | Pibí boreal
The Olive-sided Flycatcher is a large, stocky pewee that is seen in the guide area mainly on passage, always high on the top of a dead tree or a bare branch. Its hallmark is the dark 'vest', open at the front, over a white central stripe on breast and belly. It breeds in the coniferous forests of Canada and the western United States and winters mainly in the Andes.
Voice
The song is a loud, clear whistled quick-THREE-beers, also heard during spring migration. The call is a repeated pip-pip-pip.
Recording: Greg Irving — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
18–20 cm, with a large head, a short tail and long, pointed wings. Upperparts dark greyish olive. Flanks and sides of the breast dark, streaky greyish olive, like an unbuttoned vest; throat and a narrow central strip down breast and belly white or yellowish white. On each side of the rump a white tuft that often shows behind the wing but is frequently hidden. Wing bars indistinct. Bill fairly large, lower mandible mostly orange-yellow with a dark tip. Male and female are alike.
Confusion species
Greater Pewee Contopus pertinax has a pointed crest, more uniformly grey underparts without a distinct vest and an entirely orange lower mandible. Western Wood Pewee Contopus sordidulus and Eastern Wood Pewee Contopus virens are smaller and slimmer, with a longer tail, clearer wing bars and a less sharply defined vest. Black Phoebe Sayornis nigricans has a black breast and constantly pumps its tail.
Habitat
On migration and in winter in open montane forest, forest edges, clearings with dead trees, burns and pasture with tall trees, in pine-oak forest as well as montane rainforest and lower down in foothill forest. It almost always uses the highest bare lookout and sallies from there after large flying insects, especially bees, wasps and flying ants.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
A passage migrant through almost the whole guide area, mainly in the mountains and foothills; in spring from April to early June, in autumn from August to October. Breeds locally in the coniferous forests of the mountains of northern Baja California. A scarce winter visitor in the mountains of the south of the guide area, especially in Costa Rica and Panama. Outside the guide area it breeds in Alaska, Canada and the mountains of the western and north-eastern United States; it winters mainly in the Andes from Colombia to Peru and Bolivia.
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On migration it is best found by scanning the tops of dead trees along forest edges and clearings in the mountains; after a sally the bird often returns to the same branch.
Conservation status
Not threatened, but the North American breeding population has declined steeply since the 1970s, probably through loss of wintering habitat in the Andes, changes in forest management and fewer flying insects. In the guide area mainly a scarce passage migrant.
Scientific name
Contopus cooperi | (Nuttall, 1831)
Nuttall described the species in 1831 as Muscicapa cooperi; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Contopus was introduced in 1855 by Cabanis. Contopus is Greek, from kontos 'pole, shaft' and pous 'foot', after the short legs. cooperi honours the American naturalist and collector William Cooper (1798–1864). The specimen the first description was based on came from Mount Auburn near Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA).