Perhaps the next new bird for the ABA Area, a female Gray-collared Becard (Pachyramphus major) was reported today, 5 June, by Jillian Johnston, Anne Pellegrini, and Ryan Davis. The bird has been identified as the uropygialis subspecies which can be separated from female Rose-throated Becards by the "cinnamon-rufous crown contrast with broad black eyestripe, underparts and hindcollar pale lemon", The Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America, Howell and Webb).
Gray-collared Becard is a Mexican and northern Central American endemic, the western uropygialis subspecies found as close to Arizona as southern Sonora, where it is mostly found in oak/pine forests and is most easily separated to subspecies in birds in female plumage (The Birds of Mexico..., Howell and Webb).
Photographs are courtesy of Chris West.
The becards have recently been removed from their historical placement in the Tyrant-Flycatchers and by some authors who thought they should be placed in the Cotinga Family, but now reside in the newly created Tityridae alongside the other becards, the three tityras, Cinereous and Speckled Mourners, and White-naped Xenopsaris, all tropical species.
This bird may be a first year male. The blackish scapulars and tertials are characteristic of male birds.
