Common Tody-Flycatcher

The common tody-flycatcher is a tiny, big-headed bird, 8.8 to 10.2 cm (3.5 to 4.0 in) long, weighing 4 to 8 g (0.14 to 0.28 oz), and with a long, flattened, straight bill. Adult males of the nominate subspecies T. c. cinereum have a glossy black forecrown and a slate-gray hindcrown and nape. Their lores and the area around their eyes are glossy black. Their upper back is slate-gray that becomes dark olive all the way to the uppertail coverts. Their wings are black with yellow edges on the flight feathers and yellow edges and tips on the coverts; the last show as two wing bars. Their tail is black with white tips on the outer feathers. Their entire underparts are bright yellow. They have an all-black maxilla and a black mandible with a pinkish white base. Adult females have a grayer head than males and an entirely pinkish white mandible. Both sexes have a yellowish to white iris and bluish gray legs and feet. Juveniles have dark gray crown and cheeks, a buffy tinge to the wings' yellow parts, a dark iris, and paler yellow underparts than adults. The other subspecies of the common tody-flycatcher differ from the nominate and each other thus:

T. c. virididorsale: brighter green upperparts than nominate T. c. finitimum: grayish (somewhat slaty) green upperparts T. c. wetmorei: brighter green upperparts than nominate T. c. sclateri: white throat and sometimes a dark iris T. c. …

The common tody-flycatcher is found from Mexico to northern Argentina and southern Brazil, though its range does not include most of the Amazon Basin. The subspecies are found thus:

T. c. virididorsale: central Veracruz and adjacent northern Oaxaca in southern Mexico T. c. finitimum: from southern Veracruz, Chiapas, Tabasco, and the Yucatán Peninsula in southern Mexico south on both the Caribbean and Pacific slopes to northwestern Costa Rica T. c. wetmorei: central and eastern Costa Rica and Panama; Coiba Island off Panama's Pacific coast T. c. sclateri: from Cauca and Nariño departments in southwestern Colombia south through western Ecuador to Lambayeque Department in far northwestern Peru T. c. cinereum: Colombia's three Andean ranges (except in the southwest) and from Meta Department north and east across northern Venezuela except its far northwest, the Guianas, and northeastern Brazil from eastern Roraima to the Atlantic in Amapá T. c. peruanum: eastern Ecuador and south in eastern Peru to Cuzco Department T. c. coloreum: northern Bolivia, northern Paraguay, far northeastern Argentina's Misiones Province, and southeastern Brazil roughly bounded by southern Mato Grosso, Espírito Santo, and Santa Catarina states T. c. …

The common tody-flycatcher feeds on a wide variety of arthropods and also includes fruit in its diet. It typically forages in pairs or in small family groups, though sometimes singly, and rarely joins mixed-species feeding flocks. It mostly forages in dense vegetation near the ground but sometimes ascends as high as the canopy where the forest is most open. It primarily takes prey from foliage by gleaning while perched and with short upward and outward sallies from a perch. It occasionally captures prey in mid-air. It forages very actively, hopping sideways along branches with its tail cocked and wagging. A study in Brazil showed that there it took almost all of its prey from live leaves by using strikes from a sally and hover-gleaning about equally.