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White-browed Gnatcatcher | Polioptila bilineata
Witbrauwmuggenvanger | Perlita cejiancha
The White-browed Gnatcatcher is a small, blue-grey gnatcatcher with a long black-and-white tail and a white supercilium below a black crown. It is a common bird of forest edges and semi-open country with trees from south-eastern Mexico to Panama.
Voice
Nasal, mewing calls and a rapid series of clear, whistled or chipping notes.
Recording: Patricio Mena Valenzuela — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
10–11 cm. Upperparts blue-grey, underparts white. The male has a glossy black crown bordered above the eye by a white supercilium; in the female the crown is grey and the supercilium also white. Tail long, black with white along the outer feathers, often cocked and swung from side to side. Bill short and thin.
Confusion species
White-lored Gnatcatcher Polioptila albiloris of dry Pacific-slope country: the breeding male has a black cap reaching below the eye and no white supercilium. Blue-grey Gnatcatcher Polioptila caerulea, a winter visitor in the north of the guide area, has a white eye-ring and lacks the black crown outside the breeding season. Yucatan Gnatcatcher Polioptila albiventris has more white in the wings and face and lives only in northern Yucatán.
Habitat
Canopy and edges of humid and fairly dry lowland forest, secondary forest, gallery forest, shade coffee and semi-open country with trees, also gardens; mostly below 1000 m. It gleans small insects and spiders from foliage, often in pairs and in mixed flocks.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
From south-eastern Mexico, including the southern Yucatán Peninsula, through Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica to Panama. Outside the guide area in western Colombia, Ecuador and north-western Peru.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Often seen in the crowns of isolated trees and at forest edges; the nasal calls and the swinging black-and-white tail give it away.
Conservation status
Not assessed separately by the IUCN; as part of the former, broader species it is listed as not threatened. Common and widespread at forest edges and in semi-open country.
Scientific name
Polioptila bilineata | (Bonaparte, 1850) (GBIF: Polioptila plumbea)
Bonaparte described the species in 1850 as Culicivora bilineata; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Polioptila was introduced in 1855 by Sclater. Polioptila is Greek, from polios 'grey' and ptilon 'feather': 'grey-feathered'. bilineata is Latin for 'two-striped', from bi- 'two' and lineatus 'lined', probably after the white eyebrow stripes. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cartagena, Colombia.