Bird Guide

Rufous-naped Ground Tyrant vs Spot-billed Ground Tyrant

Rufous-naped Ground Tyrant (Muscisaxicola rufivertex)

Rufous-naped Ground Tyrant

Muscisaxicola rufivertex

Small20 gGrassland

The rufous-naped ground tyrant is 15.5 to 18 cm (6.1 to 7.1 in) long and weighs about 19 to 22 g (0.67 to 0.78 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies M. r. rufivertex have a bright cinnamon or orange-rufous patch on the crown and a faint white supercilium and broken eye-ring on an otherwise pale gray head. Their upperparts are also mostly pale gray, with a black lower rump. Their wings are a dusky gray. Their tail is dusky with thin white edges on the outer webs of the outermost feathers. Their throat and belly are whitish and their breast pale gray. Voice: As of April 2025 xeno-canto had four recordings of rufous-naped ground tyrant vocalizations; the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library had eleven including one of the xeno-canto recordings. Subspecies M. r. occipitalis makes a "sharply upslurred but melodious weet" call. The nominate subspecies and M. r.

ID text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Ron Knight from Seaford, East Sussex, United Kingdom · CC BY 2.0
Spot-billed Ground Tyrant (Muscisaxicola maculirostris)

Spot-billed Ground Tyrant

Muscisaxicola maculirostris

Tiny14 gShrubland

The spot-billed ground tyrant is 14 to 15.5 cm (5.5 to 6.1 in) long and weighs 11 to 17 g (0.39 to 0.60 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies have an olive-brown crown, a whitish to buffy white supercilium and spot above their lores, a dusky line through the eye, and an olive to gray patch on the ear coverts on an otherwise whitish to dusky face. Their nape and back are olive-brown. Their wing coverts are olive-brown with buff to rufous edges. Their remiges are dusky to brownish with thin pale rufous edges. Voice: The spot-billed ground tyrant is the most vocal species in its genus. Males sing during the flight display, "a prolonged series of Pit notes accelerating slightly into a higher-pitched flourish ending with two short, clear whistles: Pi-tew!". It also makes separate pit, pip, and pew calls.

ID text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Originally hogsas from Flickr · CC BY 2.0

Where you might meet both

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Photos and recordings are credited to their authors under the licence shown. Full profiles: Rufous-naped Ground Tyrant and Spot-billed Ground Tyrant.