Plain Antvireo

Sightings
Plain Antvireo Dysithamnus mentalis was only seen on this one occasion during ten days spent on Trinidad and Tobago where it is an uncommon forest resident. It was found on the Trace Gilpin Trail of the Tobago Forest Reserve moving about in dense vegetation.

Species
The adult male has a slate grey head and upperparts, blackish cheeks, three narrow white wing bars, pale grey underparts and a white belly. Despite being a rather poor distant photo, most of these identification features are visible. The female has olive brown upperparts, a rufous crown, a white eye-ring, yellowish-buff underparts and weakly buff-barred rufous wings. Plain Antvireo has a remarkable eighteen subspecies of which D. m. oberi is only found on Tobago and D. m. andrei is found on Trinidad as well as north east Venezuela. Depending on subspecies, there are large variations in the plumage of both sexes, especially in the colour of the underparts (yellow to white), the darkness of the face, the amount of olive to the upperparts of the male, and the amount of rufous to the upperparts of the female.

Status and Distribution
Plain Antvireo is of least concern with a decreasing population in a huge range of more than sixteen million square kilometres. It breeds from southern Mexico south to northern Argentina, and on Trinidad and Tobago. It is patchily distributed at the margins of its range and generally avoids the lowlands.

References
BirdLife; Wikipedia; World Bird Names; Kenefick, M., Restall, R., and Hayes, F. (2015) Birds of Trinidad and Tobago, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 184.

Photograph
It was photographed in dull light in dense forest at 1/100th of a second, f5.6 at ISO 1600.