Cattle Tyrant Gallery

Machetornis rixosa

The Birds of the World website introduces the Cattle Tyrant with this descriptive information:  The Cattle Tyrant is a resident of dry open savanna and pastureland. There are two major regions where this species occurs: in easternmost Panama and in northern South America Colombia and in Venezuela; and in central and eastern South America, from Bolivia south to Argentina and east to northeastern Brazil.  The Cattle Tyrant is a long legged and short winged flycatcher with brown upperparts, a gray crown, a thin dusky eye stripe, and yellow underparts.  Cattle Tyrants usually forage in pairs or small groups on the ground where they run rapidly with upright posture in pursuit of terrestrial insects.  As the name implies, Cattle Tyrants sometimes perch on the backs of cattle and horses, making quick sallies to the ground or in the air to catch insects flushed by the livestock. During the breeding season these flycatchers build a bulky ball-shaped nest of grass high above ground, or appropriate the large multi-chambered nest of the Rufous-fronted Thornbird (Phacellodomus rufifrons).

I met my first Cattle Tyrant on the morning of Tuesday, August 23, 2023.  Our Jeff Parker Tour group was staying at Southwild’s Santa Tereza Lodge and I watched this bird from a boat on the Rio Sararé which is near the lodge.  For details of my Brazilian trip that include the sighting of this bird, look here.  Below are some of the photos I took of this flycatcher.