Venezuelan Bristle-Tyrant

Fairly common within a very small coastal-cordillera range; a confiding flock follower once located. Range-restricted endemic, so a near-guaranteed pickup at the right cloud-forest elevation but tied to mixed flocks.

Small olive-yellow flycatcher (~11 cm) with a gray crown, yellowish-white lores and a prominent yellowish-white eye-ring on a mottled yellowish face, a blackish crescent at the top/rear of the ear coverts, olive back and rump, blackish wings with bold pale-yellow edges forming two contrasting wing bars, and a pinkish lower mandible. The gray crown + black ear-crescent + bold yellow wing bars + pink lower mandible is the combination to teach.

Wet montane (cloud) forest and forest edge, lower and middle growth, roughly 850–1,400 m in the Cordillera de la Costa.

Resident. Forages mid-story to lower canopy with a fairly upright posture, making short upward sallies for arthropods; singly or in pairs and a frequent member of mixed-species flocks. Active and restless — easier to see than most Pogonotriccus because it travels with flocks.

Song a fast trill with a distinctive ending; call a soft double-noted note. Recordings exist but are limited. Search Xeno-canto / Macaulay Library for 'Pogonotriccus venezuelanus' (also indexed under the older 'Phylloscartes venezuelanus') / 'Venezuelan Bristle-Tyrant'.

Don't search for it in isolation — find a moving mixed-species canopy flock along the Portachuelo road and pick it out by the bold yellow wing bars and black ear-crescent. Coach clients explicitly that 'Venezuelan Bristle-Tyrant' and 'Venezuelan Tyrannulet' are two different birds in the same flock to avoid a logging error.