White-browed Gnatcatcher
Polioptila bilineata
Tiny gray-and-white bird with long cocked tail and rather long slender bill. Fairly common in humid tropical forest canopy and edge, from Mexico to northwestern Peru. Often in pairs, traveling with mixed-species flocks. Both sexes have a thick white eyebrow and ‘open’ face, unlike the narrow white eyebrow (and dark lores!) of White-lored Gnatcatcher, which overlaps in parts of Middle America. Male cap is black, female cap gray.
Taxonomy
The white-browed gnatcatcher was formally described in 1850 by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte and given the binomial name Sylvia bilineata. Bonaparte specified the locality as Cartagena, a city on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. This species was formerly considered as a subspecies of the tropical gnatcatcher (Polioptila plumbea). The white-browed gnatcatcher was split from the tropical gnatcatcher based on morphology and phylogenetic data.<p>Five subspecies are recognised:
- Scientific name
- Polioptila bilineata
- Authority
- (Bonaparte, 1850)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Polioptilidae
- Genus
- Polioptila
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
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Myrmotherula behni
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Cape Weaver
Ploceus capensis
A large weaver with a long, thin pointed bill. The male has a pale eye, and during the breeding season a brownish wash to the face. The female has a brown eye and an olive-brown belly. The species occupies open country, where it often breeds in mixed-species colonies over water or in large isolated trees. The chattering and rasping song is long and complex. The smaller Southern Brown-throated Weaver has a chunkier bill than Cape Weaver; its male has a better defined brown throat and its female has a white belly. African Golden-Weaver has reddish eyes, and Holub’s Golden-Weaver has an unstreaked yellowish back.
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