All species › Passerines › Tyrant flycatchers and allies › Streaked Flycatcher
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Streaked Flycatcher | Myiodynastes maculatus
Gestreepte tiran | Papamoscas rayado
The Streaked Flycatcher is a large, heavily streaked tyrant flycatcher with a rufous tail, often perching high at forest edges and in semi-open country with tall trees, and nesting in tree holes. In the guide area it lives from eastern Mexico to Panama; birds in the northern part are summer visitors that winter in South America.
Voice
A sharp, squeaky kee-zik or kee-zee-ik, often repeated, and at dawn a softer song of a few clear notes.
Recording: Juan Freile — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
19–22 cm, with a large head and a heavy bill whose lower mandible is pinkish at the base. Upperparts brown with dark streaks; rump and tail rufous, the tail feathers with dark centres. Head with a whitish supercilium, a broad dark eyestripe, a whitish stripe below the eye and a dark malar stripe; a concealed yellow crown patch. Underparts whitish to very pale yellow, densely streaked dark on the throat, breast and flanks. Wing feathers edged pale. Male and female are alike.
Confusion species
Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher Myiodynastes luteiventris is very similar but has an all-dark bill, a black malar stripe that meets under the chin, a darker mask and a yellower belly. Piratic Flycatcher Legatus leucophaius is much smaller, with a short bill, an unstreaked back and no rufous in the tail. Golden-bellied Flycatcher Myiodynastes hemichrysus (montane forest of Costa Rica and western Panama) has a bright yellow, barely streaked belly.
Habitat
Forest edges, clearings and gallery forest in humid and semi-humid lowland forest, secondary forest, plantations and semi-open country with tall trees, mostly in the lowlands and foothills. It often sits quietly on a partly shaded branch in the canopy. It eats large insects and also much fruit. It nests in a tree hole, often an old woodpecker hole.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Breeds on the Atlantic slope of Mexico from southern Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosí to the Yucatán Peninsula, and on through Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica to Panama, mainly on the Caribbean slope; in Costa Rica and Panama also on the Pacific slope. Outside the guide area over much of tropical South America, to northern Argentina; northern breeders winter in South America.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Most conspicuous by its sharp call from a high branch at a forest edge; in the breeding season it often stays near a suitable tree hole.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Fairly common at forest edges and in semi-open country; in the northern part of the guide area present only in the breeding season.
Scientific name
Myiodynastes maculatus | (Müller, 1776)
Müller described the species in 1776 as Muscicapa maculata; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Myiodynastes was introduced in 1857 by Bonaparte. Myiodynastes is Greek, from muia 'fly' and dunastēs 'ruler': 'fly-ruler'. maculatus is Latin for 'spotted', after the heavily streaked breast and back. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cayenne, French Guiana.