All species › Passerines › Tyrant flycatchers and allies › Social Flycatcher
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Social Flycatcher | Myiozetetes similis
Roodkruintiran | Luis gregario
The Social Flycatcher is one of the commonest tyrant flycatchers in the guide area: a small, noisy, kiskadee-like bird with a striped head and yellow belly that often lives in pairs or small groups. It is seen everywhere in villages, gardens and semi-open country. In the guide area it lives from north-western and eastern Mexico to Panama.
Voice
Very varied: shrill, somewhat hoarse calls such as chew and kree, and loud chattering when the birds of a pair or small group greet each other. At dawn a rapidly repeated song series.
Recording: Juan Freile — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
16–17 cm, with a short, stubby black bill. Crown and mask dark grey, with a broad white supercilium that almost meets on the forehead; an orange-red crown patch is usually concealed. Back olive-brown; the wing-coverts have narrow pale edges. Throat white, rest of the underparts bright yellow. Young birds have rusty edges to the wing and tail feathers. Male and female are alike.
Confusion species
Great Kiskadee Pitangus sulphuratus is much larger, with a long, thick bill and rufous edges to the wings and tail. Boat-billed Flycatcher Megarynchus pitangua is much larger, with a very broad bill. Rusty-margined Flycatcher Myiozetetes cayanensis (south-western Costa Rica and Panama) has a blackish crown, rusty edges to the flight feathers and a long, plaintive call. Grey-capped Flycatcher Myiozetetes granadensis has a grey head without a long supercilium. White-ringed Flycatcher Conopias albovittatus has a black crown with a white band running all the way round, and lives high in the forest.
Habitat
Semi-open and open country with trees in the lowlands and lower mountains, to about 1500 m: villages, towns, gardens, parks, pasture with trees, plantations, forest edges and the banks of rivers and lakes. It hunts insects from a perch and eats many small fruits. The domed nest of grass and fibres is often placed over water or near a wasp nest.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
From southern Sonora on the Pacific slope and southern Tamaulipas on the Atlantic slope through southern Mexico and all of Central America to Panama. Outside the guide area over much of tropical South America, to north-western Peru, northern Bolivia and north-eastern Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Common in almost every lowland village and town, often near water, where pairs perch calling loudly on the same branch.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Very common and benefits from deforestation and settlement.
Scientific name
Myiozetetes similis | (Spix, 1825)
Spix described the species in 1825 as Muscicapa similis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Myiozetetes was introduced in 1859 by Sclater. Myiozetetes is Greek, from muia 'fly' and zētētēs 'seeker': 'fly-seeker'. similis is Latin for 'similar', after its close resemblance to related flycatchers such as M. cayanensis. The specimen the first description was based on came from mouth of the Rio Madeira, Amazonas, Brazil.