Masked Gnatcatcher

Overview

The Polioptila dumicola is a small songbird belonging to the family Polioptilidae. It is distributed across South America, with its range covering parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The species is currently assessed as Least Concern by the IUCN Red List.

Identification

• Length of 12 to 13 cm and weight of 5 to 7 g, making it larger than most other gnatcatchers.
• Nominate males feature a prominent black mask with a thin white line beneath it, blue-gray upperparts, and a black tail with white outer feathers.
• Nominate females lack the mask, instead displaying a black crescent extending from the eye, with duller, less bluish upperparts.
• Loudsong is described as variable, short, sweet, and musical.

Habitat

The nominate subspecies primarily inhabits the Gran Chaco and Humid Chaco biomes, as well as several savanna types, typically at elevations below 1,000 m. The saturata subspecies occupies dry montane forest between 1,500 and 2,000 m in the Bolivian highlands, while berlepschi is found in the Cerrado and Pantanal ecoregions with their widely spaced trees.

Diet

The diet consists of small arthropods, which the bird forages for in the canopy by gleaning while hopping on branches. It also employs hover-gleaning and sallying to capture flying prey, and hunts singly, in pairs, or as part of a mixed-species foraging flock.

Did you know?

The nest is a small, deep cup constructed from plant fibers cemented with spider silk and camouflaged externally with lichens. Both sexes participate in incubation and feeding the young.