Northern tufted flycatcher
The northern tufted flycatcher or simply tufted flycatcher is a small passerine bird in the tyrant flycatcher family. It is found from Mexico to Ecuador.
Taxonomy and systematics
The northern tufted flycatcher was originally described as Mitrephorus phaeocercus. It was later determined that genus Mitrephorus already "belonged" to other taxa so by the principle of priority genus Mitrephanes was erected for it.The northern tufted flycatcher's further taxonomy is unsettled. The International Ornithological Committee and the Clements taxonomy recognize these four subspecies:
- M. p. tenuirostris Brewster (ornithologist)|Brewster], 1888
- M. p. phaeocercus
- M. p. aurantiiventris
- M. p. berlepschi Hartert, EJO, 1902
What is now the olive tufted flycatcher of Peru and Bolivia was previously treated as a subspecies of the northern tufted flycatcher. The northern tufted and olive tufted flycatchers are the only species in genus Mitrephanes.
This article follows the four-subspecies model.
Description
The northern tufted flycatcher is long and weighs about. The sexes have the same plumage and all subspecies have an erect pointed crest. Adults of the nominate subspecies M. p. phaeocercus have a brown-tinged olive crown, a pale spot above the lores, and a thin buff-white eye-ring on an otherwise cinnamon face. Their upperparts are brownish with an olive tinge. Their wings are dusky with buff ends on the coverts that show as two wing bars. They have whitish or pale yellow edges on their tertials. Their tail is dusky. Their throat and breast are bright ochre to cinnamon and their belly ochre-yellow. They have a dark iris, a black maxilla, an orange-yellow mandible, and blackish legs and feet. Juveniles have a dark brown crown with cinnamon-buff edges on its feathers and those of their upperparts.Subspecies M. p. tenuirostris is paler and duller than the nominate. M. p. berlepschi has a darker olive crown than the nominate, with yellowish lores, an olive back and breast, olive wing bars, and a bright yellow belly. M. p. aurantiiventris is intermediate between the nominate and berlepschi, with medium olive upperparts and underparts tending more ochre than cinnamon.
Distribution and habitat
The subspecies of the northern tufted flycatcher are found thus:- M. p. tenuirostris: western Mexico from southeastern Sonora and southwestern Chihuahua south to western Jalisco
- M. p. phaeocercus: mountains of eastern and central Mexico from the latitude of Zacatecas south through Guatemala, northern El Salvador, and Honduras into far northeastern Nicaragua
- M. p. aurantiiventris: from Costa Rica's central Alajuela Province east through Panama into the Serranía del Darién short of the Colombian border
- M. p. berlepschi: from extreme eastern Panama south through western Colombia slightly into northwestern Ecuador's Esmeraldas and Carchi provinces
The northern tufted flycatcher inhabits a variety of wooded montane landscapes in the upper tropical to lower temperate zones. These including pine, pine-oak, evergreen, and secondary forests and also more open areas and gallery forest. It tends to favor the forest edges and gaps and clearings within it. In elevation if ranges between in northern Central America, between in Costa Rica, from near sea level to in Colombia, and between in Ecuador.