Ash-throated Flycatcher
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The ash-throated flycatcher (''Myiarchus cinerascens'') is a
passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...
bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...
in the
tyrant flycatcher The tyrant flycatchers (Tyrannidae) comprise a family of passerine birds which is found virtually throughout North and South America. It is the world's largest family of birds, with more than 400 species, and is the most diverse avian family i ...
family.


Taxonomy

First described in 1851 by
George Newbold Lawrence George Newbold Lawrence (October 20, 1806 – January 17, 1895) was an American businessman and amateur ornithologist. Early life Lawrence was born in the city of New York on October 20, 1806. From his youth, Lawrence was a lover of birds and sp ...
from a specimen collected in western Texas in the United States, the ash-throated flycatcher was initially given the scientific name ''Tyrannula cinerascens''. The species was mistakenly described again in 1851 as ''Tyrannula mexicanus'' — an error that was corrected in 1859 when
Philip Lutley Sclater Philip Lutley Sclater (4 November 1829 – 27 June 1913) was an English lawyer and zoologist. In zoology, he was an expert ornithologist, and identified the main zoogeographic regions of the world. He was Secretary of the Zoological Society ...
analyzed the
tyrant flycatcher The tyrant flycatchers (Tyrannidae) comprise a family of passerine birds which is found virtually throughout North and South America. It is the world's largest family of birds, with more than 400 species, and is the most diverse avian family i ...
s known from Mexico and realized that both scientific names referred to the same species. During the same analysis, Slater moved the ash-throated flycatcher from the
genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
''Tyrannula'' to its current genus, ''
Myiarchus ''Myiarchus'' is a genus of birds in the tyrant flycatcher family Tyrannidae. Most species are fairly similar in appearance and are easier to separate by voice than by plumage. ''Myiarchus'' flycatchers are fairly large tyrant-flycatchers at 16 ...
''. In the past, the ash-throated flycatcher has sometimes been considered to be
conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organism ...
with Nutting's flycatcher, but there are morphological and
vocal The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...
differences between the two. There is disagreement as to whether the two species hybridize. The ash-throated flycatcher has two recognized subspecies: * ''M. c. cinerascens'', the nominate subspecies described by Lawrence in 1851, breeds from the western US down into southern and central Mexico and winters from the southern US to Honduras, principally on the Pacific slope. * ''M. c. pertinax'', described by
Spencer Fullerton Baird Spencer Fullerton Baird (; February 3, 1823 – August 19, 1887) was an American naturalist, ornithologist, ichthyologist, Herpetology, herpetologist, and museum curator. Baird was the first curator to be named at the Smithsonian Institution. He ...
in 1860, is restricted to Mexico's
Baja California Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northwesternmost of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of B ...
. The genus name ''Myiarchus'' is a compound word created from the
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
words ''muia'' (μυια), meaning "fly" and ''arkos'' (αρχος) meaning "ruler" or "chief". The
species epithet Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany) ...
''cinerascens'' is a
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
word meaning "ashen".


Description

The ash-throated flycatcher is a medium-sized tyrant flycatcher, measuring in length with a
wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the opposite wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingsp ...
of and a mass of . Overall, it is slim and long-tailed, with a slightly peaked crest on its relatively large head. The upperparts are olive brown, with a darker head and short crest. The breast is gray and the belly is a very pale yellow. The brown tail feathers and wings have
rufous Rufous () is a color that may be described as reddish-brown or brownish- red, as of rust or oxidised iron. The first recorded use of ''rufous'' as a color name in English was in 1782. However, the color is also recorded earlier in 1527 as a d ...
outer webs, and there are two dull wing bars. The sexes are similar.


Distribution and habitat

It breeds in desert scrub, riparian forest, brushy pastures and open woodland from the western United States to central
Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
. It is a short-distance migrant, retreating from most of the U.S. and northern and central Mexico, spending the winter from southern Mexico to
Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...
. This bird is also prone to wander, with single birds often seen outside its normal breeding range as far away as the east coast of
North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
.


Behavior


Feeding

This species is primarily an
insectivore file:Common brown robberfly with prey.jpg, A Asilidae, robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivore, carnivorous animal or plant which eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the Entomophagy ...
that flies from a perch to catch prey from the ground or from foliage in the undergrowth, less often from branches and trunks, hardly ever in midair. Unlike many other tyrant flycatchers, it often moves on to another perch rather than returning to the same one. It also takes some fruit, especially in winter if insects are unavailable. Rarely, it takes small mammals and reptiles, which it kills by banging them against hard objects.


Breeding

The nest is built in a tree cavity or similar natural or man-made hole, and the normal clutch is three or four eggs.


Vocalizations

The ash-throated flycatcher is separated from other confusingly similar ''Myiarchus'' species by its calls, a burry ''kabrick'' and a rough ''prrt'' or ''wheer'' heard year-round.


Conservation and threats

Because of its extensive range, very large population, and generally increasing numbers, the ash-throated flycatcher has been listed as a species of
least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...
by the
International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...
. It is one of the species protected by the
Migratory Bird Treaty Act The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 (MBTA), codified at (although §709 is omitted), is a United States federal law, first enacted in 1918 to implement the convention for the protection of migratory birds between the United States and Canada. ...
. In the United States, the creation of bluebird trails, a network of
nest box A nest box, also spelled nestbox, is a man-made enclosure provided for animals to nest in. Nest boxes are most frequently utilized for birds, in which case they are also called birdhouses or a birdbox/bird box, but some mammals such as bats ma ...
es put out for the continent's three
bluebird The bluebirds are a North American group of medium-sized, mostly insectivorous or omnivorous passerine birds in the genus ''Sialia'' of the thrush family (Turdidae). Bluebirds are one of the few thrush genera in the Americas. Bluebirds lay an ...
species, may benefit ash-throated flycatchers as they will also use the boxes. Ash-throated flycatchers have been found to be negatively affected by
noise pollution Noise pollution, or sound pollution, is the propagation of noise or sound with potential harmful effects on humans and animals. The source of outdoor noise worldwide is mainly caused by machines, transport and propagation systems.Senate Publi ...
. Noise pollution is an unnaturally high and harmful level of noise within an environment, and can be caused by industrial changes like automobiles, airplanes or factories.  In one study, noise pollution caused decreases in baseline corticosterone and increases in acute (stressor-induced)
corticosterone Corticosterone, also known as 17-deoxycortisol and 11β,21-dihydroxyprogesterone, is a 21-carbon steroid hormone of the corticosteroid type produced in the cortex of the adrenal glands. In the very rare case of congenital adrenal hyperplasia due ...
levels in both adult female and nestling ash-throated flycatchers. At the highest levels of environmental noise, nestling flycatchers also showed decreased feather growth and body mass. Abnormal noise levels may also decrease the ash-throated flycatcher's listening area within its territory, affecting its ability to find prey or avoid predators.


Parasites and predators

The ash-throated flycatcher is host to a number of parasites, including the nasal
mite Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods) of two large orders, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari. However, most recent genetic analyses do not recover the two as eac ...
''Tyranninyssus callinectoides'' (for which it is the type host) and the quill mite ''Syringophilopsis tyranni''.


References


External links

* * * *
Ash-throated flycatcher Species Account
– Cornell Lab of Ornithology * {{Authority control ash-throated flycatcher Native birds of the Western United States Birds of Mexico ash-throated flycatcher ash-throated flycatcher