White-headed Marsh-tyrant Arundinicola leucocephala

Brazilian name: freirinha
Male White-headed Marsh-tyrant, Aguas de São Pedro, São Paulo, Brazil, December 2006 - click for larger image Brazil

A Tyrant Flycatcher, the male White-headed Marsh-tyrant is quite distinct in appearance. It is slightly crested, black with the entire head and upper chest white and with a yellow lower mandible.

It has a chunky appearance and perches upright on vegetation above marshes and wetland such as the Pantanal. Compared to Fluvicola water-tyrants, it is rarely seen on the ground and hardly ever spreads or cocks its tail.

Female White-headed Marsh-tyrant, Roraima, Brazil, July 2001 - click for larger image The female White-headed Marsh-tyrant has similar habits but looks very different and might be mistaken for a Black-backed Water-tyrant Fluvicola albiventer or a Pied Water-tyrant Fluvicola pica but it is more brownish above and less crispy white below.

The third photo shows a female outside her nest.
Female White-headed Marsh-tyrant and nest, Roraima, Brazil, July 2001 - click for larger image It is one of the birds that is parasitised by the Shiny Cowbird Molothrus bonariensis

There are illustrations in Hilty & Brown, Page 504; Ridgely & Tudor, Volume 2, Plate 42; and Sick, Page 476

There is a recording and a distribution map on xeno-canto . 

Female White-headed Marsh-tyrant, Aguas de São Pedro, São Paulo, Brazil, December 2006 - click for larger image
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