Photo 2989527, (c) Greg Lasley, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Greg Lasley

Attribution © Greg Lasley
some rights reserved
Uploaded by greglasley greglasley
Source iNaturalist
Associated observations

Photos / Sounds

What

Golden-bellied Flycatcher (Myiodynastes hemichrysus)

Observer

greglasley

Date

February 7, 2016

Description

When I came out of my cabin into the cold morning air, I heard a high pitched call I was not familiar with. I located the bird perched high up in a tree partially obscured with branches. The bird was calling regularly, a one and two note squeeky call. The light was poor and I was mostly directly under the bird but was able to move somewhat to try to get a look at it. It is a stripe headed flycatcher of the Great Kiskadee/Social Flycatcher type but the voice was very different from those two or Boat-billed which I am very familiar with. I was able to get a few shots that are not from a good angle, but the bird does have a dark stripe on the malar area which is slightly visible in some of the shots. The other small stripe headed flycatchers in CR such as White-ringed or Gray-capped are lowland forest birds with smaller bills and I was at 8800 feet. None of the similar flycatchers should be at that altitude, but Golden-bellied regularly gets up over 7000 feet and is the only one with a dark area below the white sides of the throat. From the calls, bill size and dark malar area I think this is Golden-bellied Flycatcher or at least I can't make it into anything else. I sent some shots of this bird to @gcwarbler and he agreed with my tentative ID. I have seen the species before but it was 20+ years ago so I a certainly not well acquainted with it. If anyone has some other thoughts on another ID let me know. Thanks.

Paraiso Quetzal Lodge,
Costa Rica
7 February 2015
8885 ft elevation
9.6431
-83.8517

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