Black-headed Tody-Flycatcher

The black-headed tody flycatcher is a small bird with a glossy black head and a white throat. The black coloring continues down the sides of the neck. It has bright yellow underparts and olive-yellow upperparts. The wings are black with two yellow wingbars and yellow streaking and the tail is short and black. Its head is relatively large, as is its straight black bill. It has dark irises and no eye-rings. Its legs are blueish-gray. The females and males have the same coloring. Adults are between 8–10.2 cm long and weigh 6–6.5 g. Juveniles have slightly duller plumage, pale yellow underparts and a vaguely yellow throat. Their heads are also duller black, and their wingbars are more olive-tinged. The black-headed tody flycatcher is often confused with the common flycatcher (Todirostrum cinereum), which has a yellow throat and white eye-ring. Other similar species include the painted tody-flycatcher (Todirostrum pictum) which has black-streaked underparts and a yellow throat, and the yellow-browed tody-flycatcher (Todirostrum chrysocrotaphum) which has a yellow and black throat and yellow supercilium.

The black-headed tody-flycatcher is a non-migratory neotropical species found mainly in southern Central America and north-western South America. It is present in eastern Costa Rica, Panama, and north and western Colombia. It has also been recorded in far west Venezuela and western Ecuador. Although it has been found at altitudes of 1500 m, this species does not extend its range into the Andes. Rather, it borders the mountains and is occasionally found in the valleys between the Colombian cordilleras. This flycatcher is a tree-dwelling species, that sticks to the canopy and edges of humid forests. It is highly selective in its habitat, choosing mostly the tallest trees. It has also been found in second-growth forests, where human disturbance has impacted the growth and species present.

The black-headed tody-flycatcher is insectivorous. It targets flowering trees to find its meals, looking for insects that flowers attract. Its main diet includes various arthropods: such as beetles, flies, spiders, damselflies, ants, and parasitoid wasps. It forages alone, or sometimes in pairs, inside dense foliage and along canopy edges. To ensure access to food, tody-flycatchers have evolved diets consisting of mostly non-overlapping arthropod species. Each species focuses on a select group of insects to feed on and avoids insect species eaten by other tody-flycatchers.