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Common Tody-Flycatcher | Todirostrum cinereum
Geelbuikschoffelsnavel | Espatulilla común
The Common Tody-Flycatcher is a small, active tyrant flycatcher with a long, flat bill, a dark head, a pale iris and bright yellow underparts. It often sidles along twigs while wagging its cocked tail. In the guide area it is widespread from southern Mexico to Panama and one of the commonest flycatchers of gardens and forest edges.
Voice
A short, dry trill and series of sharp ticking tik notes; also a fast, high chatter.
Recording: Fernando Igor de Godoy — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
9–10 cm. Forehead and face black, grading into a dark grey crown and grey nape; back olive-green. Wings black with yellow edges to the coverts and tertials. Tail black, graduated, with white tips to the outer feathers, often cocked. Underparts entirely bright yellow, the throat sometimes slightly paler. Iris pale yellow to whitish. Bill long, straight and flat, black. Sexes alike.
Confusion species
Black-headed Tody-Flycatcher Todirostrum nigriceps has a glossy black head, a white throat, a dark iris and a shorter tail, and lives mainly in the forest canopy. Slaty-headed Tody-Flycatcher Poecilotriccus sylvia has white lores and eye-ring, distinct yellow wing-bars and greyish-white rather than yellow underparts. Flatbills (Tolmomyias) are larger, with a broader bill and an olive head.
Habitat
Forest edges, second growth, scrub, gardens, parks, plantations, pasture with trees and gallery forest, also the edges of mangroves; from the lowlands to about 1500 m. Pairs glean insects from the undersides of leaves. The nest is a hanging, pear-shaped pouch with a side entrance.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
From southern Mexico (southern Veracruz and Oaxaca and southwards) through all of Central America to Panama, on both slopes. Outside the guide area over much of tropical South America to Bolivia and south-eastern Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Occurs regularly in gardens, hotel grounds and parks in the lowlands, for example around Panama City and in Costa Rica. Watch for the sideways shuffling along twigs and the moving, cocked tail.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common and widespread; benefits from open, semi-open and human-modified country.
Scientific name
Todirostrum cinereum | (Linnaeus, 1766)
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as [Todus] cinereus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Todirostrum was introduced in 1831 by Lesson. Todirostrum combines the genus Todus (tody) with Latin rostrum 'bill', after the long, flat, tody-like bill. cinereum is Latin for 'ash-grey', after the grey back and crown. The specimen the first description was based on came from Suriname.