Mystery Bird: Leucistic Vermilion Flycatcher, Pyrocephalus rubinus

No takers so far?

6 hours until I can see the photo- any clues, hints, scent, or indication?

Some kind of flycatcher?

OMG, after talking up flycatchers yesterday, this sounds likes it's shaping up to be an empi struggle after several of which I am scoring a resounding "oh-fer"! (and I bet there's no song attached!)

David, the bird has an all white head and breast, but a dark eye. Must be leucistic unless it is some kind of white Mexican vagrant(I don't have a Mexican bird guide). Overall pudgy shape and bill suggests empi flycatcher to me, but I don't have a clue which one.

You're right, lectric lady, this bird is definitely leucistic, and I agree it's a flycatcher. There appear to be slightly darker patches on the sides of the breast, and the underside of the tail appears to be very pale brownish. The bird is definitely small -- it's sitting on a Mesquite twig, with leaves and thorns visible. The head appears very slightly crested, and the bill appears to be mottled dusky and orangey, with the paler color concentrated along the mandible edges. The rictal bristles (stiff, vane-less feathers around the bill) are pretty much diagnostic for flycatchers. We can't see the wings or the back, unfortunately.

With all that, I wouldn't get hooked on Empidonax quite yet -- I think there's another genus still possible.

Ha! I bet you Grrl was trying to be slick and slipped in a leucistic Vermilion!

Doh, I spent half an hour earlier trying to figure this out. I got as far as a flycatcher (the little catcher bristles that psweet tells us are "rictal bristles") and basic "pose" and shape, and then got nowhere.

I need to learn more about leucistic birds, clearly :)

David,

Yes she slipped in a leucistic Vermillion (whatever leucistic means). I personally want to slip in a leucistic (there's that word again) albino.

Well it seems like I wasn't the only one that thought this was a leucistic Vermillion Flycatcher. The structure looks right and there shouldn't be any empids there right now anyway.

Devy - Leucism is related to all types of pigment cells in the skin/feathers and happens when pigment cells of integument (skin, feathers, scales) don't properly differentiate (certain pigments don't come out), which can happen to a few or all pigments. It usually isn't uniform at all.

Albinism is, I believe just related to melanin. Melanocytes (melanin pigment cells) that color your eye don't come from the same place as our skin melanin which is why when vertebrates are luecistic they don't have pinkish eyes.

That's what I understand about leucism (I could be wrong though).

What field marks led to the vermillion conclusion? Was the bird captured and measured? Some back/wing markings that we can't see here? Behavior?

Just curious~

I would have guessed that the bill is too long for a Vermilion, comparing it to yesterdays. I was actually considering one of the Pewees.

David, are you serious? You've guessed correctly and you haven't even seen the bird yet? How the heck...?! I can see flycatcher but because most of the differences I look for are to do with color and this one is anomalous, that's as far as I can get!

I also ruled out the vermillion, based on the length of the bill. But that depends so much on the angle of the shot. Example: does this bird have a longish or shortish tail? Based on this photo I would say shortish, but a different angle might suggest longish.

Psweet: It does have a Peewee look too. I am just glad that I evidently narrowed it down to a flycatcher! Like Maggie Moo, I have no clue how to further narrow it down based on this one photo.

What have you vermillion folks seen?

"...there shouldn't be any empids there right now anyway"

Just re-read Brendan's post.

Damn! Note to self: look at date of photo. Was that the clue? Process of elimination?

OK, here we go, my first look⦠Maggie, I have to say my guess was more psychology than ornithology, and now seeing it I have to admit Iâve seen it before (bird and mesquite branch) where it was also identified as a Vermilion Flycatcher, but given how much erroneous information is posted even (especially?) on birding sites and blogs, I going to try to work out whyâ¦

Firstly, it simply looks like a tyrant flycatcher, family Tyrannidae, so we only have to consider about 34 species found in Arizona!

Of those, based upon shape and length of tail, I think we can safely eliminate all 7 species in the genus Tyrannus (Kingbirds), all 5 in the genus Myiarchus, and without a noticeable crest, Mitrephanes phaeocercus. That leaves us with: our Vermilion, Pyrocephalus rubinus; the Northern Beardless Tyrannulet, Camptostoma imberb; 4 Contopus (Pewees) ; 10 Empidonax; and 3 Sayornis (Phoebes).

Because of the angle of this photo we canât look at primary extension, but we can look at bill shape where we would expect a shorter and stubbier bill for the Tyrannulet, and flatter (the impression of wider) bills for the empids with the Hammondâs being the exception but certainly shorter than above, so we are now down to 8â¦

the Black, Eastern, or Says Phoebes; Olive-sided, and Great, Eastern, or Western Pewees; and Vermilion

Eliminating the Greater Pewee because of it's own much heavier bill shape, and then perhaps the Olive-sided because of size (this one looks relatively small, but honestly that's more intuitive than technical), we get down to Paul's Eastern or Western Pewee (and Iâm sure heâd agree that there would be no way at all to visually differentiate between the two), the three Phoebes (which are hard to differentiate from the Pewees without call or behavioral analysis- perched, Phoebes flick their tail while Pewees don't), and the Vermilion...

Now I have to say Paul, that I'm down to sifting through photo after photo, trying to compare birds perched in similar manners showing the same profile, and virtually all the photos of Western or Eastern Pewees show the bird in a more upright manner, broad across the top of the breast tapering towards the tail, whereas all the Vermilion photos and those of the Phoebes, seem to have the "squat" habit, much more rounded when perched, and even relative bill lengths seem to me to be very, very similar, so I'm pesonally down to four... but I wonder of you can see the difference in distances between the eye and the bill as in these two examples, or am I stretching?

Vermilion Flycatcher

Say's Phoebe

And it appears that one of the clues that lead to it being decided as Vermilion is because it was accompanied by a female Vermilion!

Arizona Field Ornithologists Photo Documentation of leucistic male

feeling kinda bummed. i was so happy when i dug up that image, giggling with glee, and now? not so much.

Grrl, in one of the accounts that David shared they argue that the bird had a "vermilion wash" but I have to say that I don't see that at all. Sure, there are some color changes, especially on the flanks, but it doesn't follow the pattern of red/black on a normally colored one and if this is leucistic, as David explained in the Leucistic European Herring Gull on December 15 (comment 7), there could be numerous reasons why we don't see the red which is really carotenoid pigmentaion which can range from the vermilion all the way down to beige.

Without seeing the phot, any ID on the mesquite David? LOL!

Thatâs very good, Maggie! LOL! And not fair since I am indeed once again blind!

However, I accept the challenge! I seem to remember the leaves were somewhat slender, the branch a little rough, and certainly not hairy, so of the three possibles: Velvet Mesquite, Prosopis velutina, Screwbean Mesquite, Prosopis pubescens, or Honey Mesquite, Prosopis glandulosa, my bet is on the Honey!

Looking at your photos, David, I don't know if I'd want to try that. I do notice that your Vermilion, as well as this bird, seem to have longer bills than the previous Vermilion. Of course, some of that is probably camera angles.

Once I started thinking about this, Vermilion should have been obvious -- it's virtually the only sexually dimorphic flycatcher in the states (Scissor- and Fork-tailed differ in the length of the tail streamers, and Rose-throated Becard may or may not be flycatchers, depending on what year it is). So it's the only one where there would be any reason to ask for the sex!

It's interesting that it was apparently seen with a female. That suggests that the red color on the male isn't necessary for mate attraction (or maybe she's simply desperate?).

Don't feel bummed Grrl!

I don't think anyone was particularly sure of their choice. I said Vermilion because of the general shape of the bird (squatish, eventhough you can't see totally, it's tail doesn't look particularly long) and because I knew most other species of flycatchers wouldn't be there. The next best guess would have been a Phoebe but still not the structure I would expect to see (it's always so subjective in photos though!).

I know saying "it just looks like one" isn't a good reason to call a bird but it helps....

Hey Paul, I really haven't studied flycatchers that much but I suspect that in this species, song and territory are far stronger indicators of male quality than coloration... in some similar species, like Eastern kingbirds, early singing, song rate, and flight feather length were correlated to perceived mate quality and even clutch size... certainly, we know of song differences in Vermilions, before and after nest construction...

Hello everyone,

Lois Manowitz forwarded this discussion to me. Very interesting! I have taken several photos of this bird at the Sweetwater Wetlands in Tucson. Perhaps these shots will be helpful to confirm the ID:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quanrud/4268539979/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quanrud/4269283164/

If including these links is inappropriate, please remove them, thanks.

David Quanrud

David,

Thank you indeed!

Well certainly the in-flight photos confirm Cornell's description of the Vermilion as having 10 functional primaries, 9 secondaries (including three tertials), and 12 rectrices.

In Coues "Key to North American Birds", the following measurements were suggested: length 6, wing 3.25, tail 2.5, bill 0.45, (tarsus 0.55, middle toe and claw 0.5) and the proportions do seem right.

What I do notice also in some of the photos is the occasional shadow of black where the black should be: in the wing, across the back, the lore, behind the eye, and the nape... and I think it's worth comparing our leucistic example to a juvenile Vermilion which seems to match the coloration template a lot better and certainly demonstrates what capacity for coloration change the feathers do have- any minor disruption to the normal ditsribution of pigment across the cascade inherent in Vermilions seems to take the coloration "backwards"

David, the coloring comparison with the juvenile was a cool idea- it really makes sense now when I look more closely- hints of black where there should be black, no hints at all where there should be red/orange, and almost an identical breast/belly palette with the juvenile- I noticed also in another post (California Gull and black-tipped seabird wings), you mentioned that melanin varied from black all the way down to yellowish so that would explain the brown in the tail and not black

and it seems that Brenda and Brendan are the same! unless they are "wingtripping"...!

David, I can certainly see that females would use other traits in flycatchers as a whole (at least in N.Am.), and I suppose it makes sense in Vermilions. But then, why the "vermilion" part of the plumage in the first place?

Maggie,

Just to support the red pigmentation issue- reds in bird coloration can be attributed to different pigments and different pigment combinations, and I suspect that the vermillion coloration in Vermilions is not so much due to carotenoids as much as melanin or interactions between the two, hence the disruption to both the red and black in this species- it may be that the pigmentation cascade is simply the same chemically and so both "colors" are affected (why you don't see an obvious color template parallel between the "normal" colored Vermilion Flycatcher and the leucistic one, and this is also supported visually by what we see in juvenile males)

Hi Paul,

You have a good point- why that particular color as compared with every other North American tyrant- why are only a few flycatchers sexually dimorphic (length of tail in Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, Tyrannus forficatus; plumage and tails in Silky Flycatchers, Ptilogonatidae)?

But we also have to understand some of the nuances of color perception and vision in birds which in many regards is more advanced than in humans, certainly better in some critical abilities (night-vision in owls, underwater vision in goldeneyes, depth perception for kingfishers, etc.) and the structures that support the skills required for survival- diurnal birds have more cones in their eyes than do humans, many hawks have a flattened lens that essentially acts as an enlarger when objects hit their retinae, cone density and cone sensitivity vary between avian species that allow some to view ultraviolet (hummingbirds in nectivory), and in many bird species they have foveae- extra dense concentrations of cones, or oil droplets which filter out certain wavelengths- as exampled above, owls have clear oil that reduced brightness, kingfishers increased amounts of red and yellow oils to allow then to see through water, goldeneyes have increased yellow which allow them to see under waterâ¦

I think itâs fair to say that color (or tail length) in sexually dimorphic species probably does have a sexual selection function but that a combination of color, territory, song, length of primaries, species of tree, location of nest, etc. have a cumulative dynamic supported by phylogeny- some research into differently colored Pied Flycatchers seems to support the contention that color alone may be problematic. but a series of supporting factors is used for mate attraction.

Fair enough, David, although a minor point -- the Silky Flycatchers (Ptilonogatidae) are unrelated to the Tyrannidae. Tyrannidae is a suboscine family, Ptilonogatidae is an oscine family.

Thanks Paul, that's actually why I separated my questions N.Am "tyrants", then "flycatchers" and included the Silkys because of geography (technically still N.Am.) and also to perhaps imply that even oscines (considered more "advanced"), have retained color as a mate attracting strategy... I believe all four species in the Ptilogoanatidae are sexually dimorphic and I guess I could have included the tyrant Crested Doradito (Pseudocolopteryx sclateri) to expand the discussion on exceptions southwards, the males having differently-colored heads and bills, breast color intensity, and modified P6 and P7 feathers...

It's almost too easy to slip into research-essay mode, so I'm trying to keep comments "blog-brief"!