Description
In appearance the Social Flycatcher resembles a smaller Boat-billed Flycatcher or Great Kiskadee. The adult is 16â18 cm long and weighs 24â27 g. The head is dark grey with a strong white eyestripe and a usually concealed orange to vermilion crown stripe. The upperparts are olive-brown, and the wings and tail are brown with only faint rufous fringes. The underparts are yellow and the throat is white. Young birds have a paler eye mask, reduced crown stripe, and have chestnut fringes to the wing and tail feathers. The call is a sharp peeurrr and the dawn song is a chips-kâ-cheery.
As the specific epithet similis (Latin for "the similar one") indicates, this species looks much like its closest living relative the Rusty-margined Flycatcher (Myiozetetes cayanensis), and also like the White-bearded Flycatcher (Phelpsia inornatus), White-ringed Flycatcher (Conopias albovittatus) and Lesser Kiskadee (Pitangus/Philohydor lictor). In fact, except at close range these are all but indistinguishable from appearance alone. They and the two larger similar species mentioned above share much of their range. Though they all are apparently fairly close relatives, the group to which they seem to belong also includes species with rather different head-pattern, like the Grey-capped Flycatcher which also belongs to Myiozetetes.
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Boat-billed Flycatcher
Megarynchus pitangua -
Greater Kiskadee
Pitangus sulphuratus -
Rusty-margined Flycatcher
Myiozetetes cayanensis
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