- Saltator atriceps
Identification
24 cm (9½ in)
- Slate-grey head
- Whitish supercilium
- Yellow green upperparts
- Pale grey underparts
- White throat edged with black
- Thick, black convex bill
- Brown legs
Young birds are duller, with brown marks on upperparts, and a mottled breast
Distribution
Central America: found in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama
Taxonomy
Subspecies
There are 6 subspecies[1]:
- S. a. atriceps:
- Caribbean slope of Mexico to Guatemala and eastern Costa Rica
- S. a. suffuscus:
- South-eastern Mexico (Sierra de Tuxtla of south-eastern Veracruz)
- S. a. flavicrissus:
- Western Mexico (central Guerrero)
- S. a. peeti:
- Pacific slope of southern Mexico (Chiapas and adjacent Oaxaca)
- S. a. raptor:
- South-eastern Mexico (Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Campeche)
- S. a. lacertosus:
- Western Costa Rica and Panama (east to Canal Zone)
Habitat
Dense vegetation. Secondary rainforest edge and rural villages.
Behaviour
Diet
The diet includes fruit, buds, nectar and slow-moving insects. Often found in mixed feeding flocks.
Breeding
It builds a bulky grass-lined cup nest in a thicket, up to 3 m high. The clutch consists of 2 pale blue eggs with black marks, which are laid between April and July.
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2019. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2019. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Avibase
- BirdForum Member observations
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Black-headed Saltator. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 4 May 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Black-headed_Saltator
External Links
GSearch checked for 2020 platform.
