On 6 July John Saba found an ABA Code-5 Tufted Flycatcher (Mitrephanes phaeocerecus) at Boyce Thompson Arboretum east of Phoenix, Arizona, in their woodland garden section. It has been photographed. Note that the arboretum closes at 3:00 P.M.
Tufted Flycatcher was first found in the ABA Area in Rio Grande Village, Big Bend National Park, Texas, from 3 November 1991 to 17 January 1992. South of Arizona, the subspecies, M. p. tenuirostris, occurs in West Mexico from Sonora and Chihuahua south to Jalisco. The other subspecies in the rest of the range extend south to northwest Ecuador (Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 9). Tufted Flycatcher is a migrant in the northern part of its range.
In Mexico, Tufted Flycatcher is a highland species found in humid and semihumid pine-oak associations and also in evergreen and semideciduous forests and edge habitats. Behaviorally it resembles a pewee, flycatching from an open perch, often sallying out and returning to the same perch (Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America, Howell and Webb).
Tufted Flycatcher is closely related to Olive Flycatcher (Mitrephanes olivaceus), formerly called Olive-tufted Flycatcher, a South American species and formerly considered conspecific with it.
some clarification on the specific location - the bird is hanging out in the Demonstration Garden, which is at the west end of the arboretum and just south of the visitor center.
Posted by: Andrew Core | July 07, 2011 at 01:15 AM