Masked Tityra

This is a continuation of a trip into Tikal NP in Guatemala with our guide, Rony, on March 19, 2026, which starts two posts back. Another bird we saw early in the morning, in poor light, was a masked tityra. Rony told me there was a dusky-capped flycatcher and a sulphur-bellied flycatcher in the tree. I was photographing what I could tell was a whitish bird, which I assumed was the dusky-capped flycatcher, and another bird with a yellow breast which I assumed was the sulphur-bellied flycatcher. When I got home and downloaded my digital photos, lightened them up in Lightroom, and then submitted them to iNaturalist, I discovered that the whitish bird I'd photographed was a masked tityra and the bird with the yellow breast was a yellow-throated vireo (subject of my next post). I was surprised and happy, as both were lifers, as the dusky-capped flycatcher and sulphur-bellied flycatcher would also have been. However, this highlights one of the major reasons I really like iNaturalist, as compared to eBird. On eBird you self-identify a bird and report, often not including a photo. On iNaturalist you must submit a photo, get help in identifying it from the computer program, and then also have identifiers weighing in on the identification. If I'd just been doing an eBird observation, I would already have had three wrong identifications for the morning (including the gartered violaceous trogon of my last post which I'd been told was a black-headed trogon). This is not to throw any shade on Rony: there are about 400 species of birds in Tikal NP, it was very dark (I couldn't see colors very well), and it was a very thick jungle setting. Rony obviously knew the national park and was extraordinarily good in locating birds. 

The masked tityra male has bare rosy skin from the bill to and around the eye. It has a black forecrown and the black wraps behind and under the red skin. The rest of the head and upper parts are pale grayish white with a heavy pearly gray cast. The wings are mostly black with grayish white tertials. The tail is grayish white with a wide black band near the end. The throat and upper parts are whitish. Adult females have the same bare red skin, but without any black on the head and the head is a smoker gray than the male's. There are 9 subspecies of the masked tityra. I saw ssp. personata, found in eastern Mexico, from southwestern Tamaulipas to Campeche, and south through Belize, both sides of Guatemala, central and western Honduras, El Salvador and into north-central Nicaragua. The male ssp. personata, compared to the nominate ssp. semifasciata, has a grayish brown head and upperparts and is darker on the head. My photos are only catching the under parts. 

Illustration of nominate ssp. semifasciata from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World.