Tufted Flycatcher, Mitrephanes phaeocercus

Tufted Flycatcher, Mitrephanes phaeocercus. Photograph taken within the wilds of Sonora, February 2019. Photograph and identification courtesy of David F. Smith, Alamos, Sonora.

The Tufted Flycatcher, Mitrephanes phaeocercus tenuirostris, is one of four subspecies of Tufted Flycatcher, two of which are found in Mexico. They are a member of the Tyrannidae Family of Tyrant Flycatchers, which has four hundred twenty-five members placed in one hundred one genera, and one of two global species of the Mitrephanes Genus. They are also known as the Common Tufted Flycatcher and the Northern Tufted Flycatcher and in Mexico as mosquero moñudo común.

The sexes of the Tufted Flycatcher are visually identical. They have brownish upper parts tinged in olive. Their head has a brown-tinged olive crown and distinct pointed crest with a pale loral spot and thin buff-white eye-rings set against a cinnamon face contrasted by a narrow brownish-olive stripe down the nape. Their throat and breast are bright ochre to cinnamon and their belly is ochre-yellow. Their wings are dusky with two buff colored wingbars, buff margins on the secondaries, white or pale yellow tertial margins and a dusky tail. Their upper mandible is black, their lower mandible is orange-yellow, their iris is dark, and their legs are blackish.

Tufted Flycatchers are normally found in pairs in a variety of forested habitats, including pine woodlands at elevations up to 3,500 m (11,500 feet). They consume insects caught via sallying flights to seize passing prey. They are most easily recognized by their habit of perching bolt upright on an exposed branch. The Tufted Flycatcher has been poorly studied and very limited information about their behavioral patterns and biology has been documented.

The Tufted Flycatcher has limited distribution in Mexico being found in the mountains of eastern and central Mexico in the states of southwest Tamaulipas, Zacatecas and central Jalisco south to Oaxaca and Chiapas, and in western Mexico from southeast Sonora and southwest Chihuahua south to western Jalisco. The tenuirostris subspecies is found in western portions of the above ranges. They are altitudinal migrants in parts of northern Mexico descending to Sinaloa and Jalisco in the winter.

From a conservation perspective the Tufted Flycatcher is currently considered to of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations.