Sulphur-Bellied Flycatcher

 In March of this year I was with Judy and a bird guide, Rony, in Tikal NP in northeastern Guatemala. It was quite dark and Rony identified a sulphur-bellied flycatcher. It was dark and I could only faintly see a yellow breast on the bird directly above me. I was quite disappointed later to put my photo through Lightroom and find that I'd photographed a yellow-throated vireo instead. Fast-forward to the end of May and I was with a guide, Jake Thompson, on a hike up a trail at the end of Madera Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains in southeastern Arizona and Jake identified a sulphur-bellied flycatcher. My heart raced a little bit. I really wanted to see this bird, to see the bird that had disappointed me months earlier. Fortunately, I got a good look and was surprised to see brown steaks flashing down the breast into the belly, not a clean yellow front like I'd imagined. 

This illustration, from Birds of the World, seems even more incongruous than the bird that stood before me. So much brown streaking that beautiful yellow breast and belly and brown dominating everywhere else. 

Like so many of the birds I've already posted on from southeastern Arizona, this bird is far more familiar to the south, from deep into South America, up through Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, and yes, Guatemala, Mexico and nudging into Mexico. 

I was so disappointed to miss this bird in Guatemala and now so happy to have a good view in Arizona. Such an unusual catchy name. The namers of birds have captured the mystery of color. I had to look up plumbeous, as in plumbeous kite, another Guatemalan bird, to learn that it contains lead or has lead-like qualities, such as being heavy or dark gray in color. My new found knowledge helped me in Arizona with the plumbeous vireo, which I saw. I've lived 69 years without encountering the word plumbeous and have now run into it twice in a few months in my birding. In Guatemala I also saw a slate-throated redstart, another mineral color. Slate blends gray, blue and sometimes hints of green or purple. And here, sulphur, another mineral, described as "bright, vibrant, lemon-yellow" is marred by impurities, these brown impurities streaked through it. 

I don't know why this formatting has gone haywire, but I've given up trying to correct it. However, this beautiful bird is worth looking at despite the impurities on its belly and the impurities on this page.