Tufted Flycatcher

Mitrephanes phaeocercus

eBird gives this description for the Tufted Flycatcher:  Conspicuous, small crested flycatcher of highlands and foothills. Attractive cinnamon underparts, obvious tufted crest, and behavior are distinctive. Occurs in woodlands, forests, and plantations; also ranges into semiopen areas with trees and bushes, mainly in winter. Typically perches conspicuously at middle to upper levels and makes fluttering sallies for insects, often returns to the same perch again and again. Listen for a cheery, doubled “chewee-chewee.”

The Birds of the World website introduces the Tufted Flycatcher with this descriptive information:  his species, also known as the Common Tufted Flycatcher, is by far the more abundant and easily seen of the two species of Mitrephanes flycatchers. Its range encompasses much of the Pacific slope of Middle America, from northwest Mexico south to Panama, and thereafter in South America south to northwest Ecuador. Four subspecies are recognized and these differ chiefly in overall coloration, with M. p. berlepschi of eastern Panama to Ecuador easily the most distinctive, on account of its olive breast and yellow belly, as opposed to the principally cinnamon underparts in the other subspecies. The Tufted Flycatcher is found in a variety of forested habitats, including pine woodland, and is known to at least 3500 m. It draws the observer’s attention through the species’ habit of perching bolt upright on an exposed branch, periodically making sallying flights to seize a passing insect.

I met and photographed this bird on the morning of February 8, 2023, while hiking a trail above the end of the 4X4 jeep road at Savegre Hotel, Costa Rica.  Low light conditions under the canopy prevented me from getting a sharp photo, but what I was able to get was good enough for identification purposes.