White-throated flycatcher
The white-throated flycatcher is a species of bird in the family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is found in Mexico and every country in Central America.
Taxonomy and systematics
The white-throated flycatcher has three subspecies, the nominate E. a. albigularis, E. a. timidus, and E. a. australis. These subdivisions "are not solidly established" due to their similarity and the relatively small number, age, and season of collection of specimens.Description
The white-throated flycatcher is long. Three individuals weighed. The sexes are alike. Adults of the nominate subspecies have a brownish olive or olive brown crown and dull buffy-white lores and eye-ring on an otherwise paler brownish olive or olive brown face. Their upperparts are brownish olive or olive brown. Their tail is deep grayish brown with light brownish olive on the feather edges. Their wings are mostly a darker grayish brown than the upperparts, with wide light buffy brown or brownish buff tips on the median and greater coverts that show prominently as two wing bars. The wing's secondaries have pale buffy grayish or grayish buff edges. Their chin and throat are dull white, their breast buffy olive brownish that is paler on the sides and flanks, their belly pale buffy yellow or yellowish buff, and their undertail coverts brownish buff. They have a dark brown iris, a black maxilla, a pink-orange or yellowish pink mandible often with a dusky outer half, and blackish legs and feet. Immature birds have more brownish upperparts and more buffy underparts than adults, with cinnamon wing bars and pale buffy brown edges on the secondaries. Subspecies E. a. timidus is slightly larger than the nominate with paler upperparts, less buffy wing bars, and brighter buffy-yellowish flanks. E. a. australis has slightly more olivaceous upperparts than the nominate, with whiter lores, eye-ring, and wing bars, a less brownish breast, and yellower belly, flanks, and vent area."A comparative review of photos from the Macaulay Library across the species' range does not appear to support these phenotypic differences, and a taxonomic review of subspecies may be in order."
Distribution and habitat
The white-throated flycatcher has a disjunct distribution. Subspecies E. a. timidus is found on the Pacific slope of western Mexico from far southeastern Sonora and southwestern Chihuahua south to Morelos. The nominate subspecies is more widespread. It is found on the Caribbean slope from southwestern Tamaulipas south through eastern and southern Mexico and discontinuously south through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. It possibly winters further south. E. a. australis is found discontinuously from Nicaragua south through Costa Rica into western Panama's Chiriquí Province. There are also scattered records further south in Panama to the Canal Zone.In the breeding season the white-throated flycatcher inhabits open and partially open landscapes in the subtropical and lower temperate zones. It is generally near water, such as in wet meadows with brush or hedgerows and vegetation along streams and irrigation ditches. It also inhabits openings in higher elevation pine-oak forest. In the non-breeding season it moves in part to the tropical zone where it favors freshwater marshes with tall rushes and weeds and scrubby edges. In Mexico it ranges between of elevation in the breeding season and between sea level and in the non-breeding season. In northern Central America it breeds
between and winters almost to sea level. In Nicaragua it occurs between and in Costa Rica mostly between.