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Pileated Flycatcher | Xenotriccus mexicanus
Mexicaanse kuiftiran | Mosquero del Balsas
The Pileated Flycatcher is a small, grey-brown tyrant flycatcher with a long, pointed crest, found only in south-western Mexico. It lives hidden in dense thorn scrub and dry forest and is more often heard than seen.
Voice
Short, dry calls and a simple, repeated song; poorly known.
Recording: Manuel Grosselet — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm, with a long, pointed crest that is often held erect. Head and upperparts greyish-brown to olive-brown, with a narrow white eye-ring. Wings dark with two pale, ochre-tinged wing-bars. Throat and breast greyish, belly pale yellow. Male and female are alike.
Confusion species
Empidonax flycatchers lack the long crest. Northern Tufted Flycatcher Mitrephanes phaeocercus is smaller, ochre below and lives in more humid montane forest. Ash-throated Flycatcher Myiarchus cinerascens and related species are larger, with rufous in the wings and tail.
Habitat
Dense thorn scrub, the understorey of dry forest, and overgrown ravines and dry river valleys in hill country. It hunts insects low in dense vegetation.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Only in the guide area, where it is endemic to south-western Mexico: mainly the Río Balsas basin (including Morelos, Guerrero and Michoacán) and adjacent parts of Puebla and Oaxaca.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Scarce and secretive; the best chance is in dense bushes in dry ravines in Morelos and Guerrero, especially in the breeding season when the birds call.
Conservation status
Not threatened according to the global assessment, but with a small range and sensitive to clearing and burning of dry forest and thorn scrub.
Scientific name
Xenotriccus mexicanus | (Zimmer, 1938)
Zimmer described the species in 1938 as Aechmolophus mexicanus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Xenotriccus was introduced in 1927 by Dwight & Griscom. Xenotriccus is Greek, from xenos 'stranger' and trikkos 'small bird', used in ornithology for tyrant flycatchers: 'strange flycatcher', after its unusual position within the family. mexicanus is Latin for 'Mexican', after Mexico, where the species was discovered. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico.