Ochre-bellied Flycatcher

Sightings
Ochre-bellied Flycatcher Mionectes oleagineus was seen along the Trace Gilpin Trail in the Forest Reserve in Tobago. It was the only one of the species which we saw on Tobago following another bird which we saw on Trinidad. The bird was standing silently on a branch in near darkness and was found by our guide. I’m not sure how he saw the bird because I was unable to see it at all at first. I pointed my camera in the general direction and was lucky enough to take a photo reasonably well in focus.

Species
Ochre-bellied Flycatcher is a small bird of the tyrant flycatcher family. It is a common bird in humid forests, usually in undergrowth near water. It is an inconspicuous bird which, unusually for a tyrant flycatcher, feeds mainly on seeds and berries, and some insects and spiders.

Status and Distribution
It is a species of least conern with a declining population in a large range of some seventeen million square kilometres. It breeds from southern Mexico through Central America, and South America east of the Andes as far as southern Brazil, and on Trinidad and Tobago. There are seven subspecies, which differ in the distinctness of the wing bars or the shade of the upperparts. The subspecies found on Trinidad and Tobago is M. o. pallidiventris.

References
BirdLife; Wikipedia; World Bird Names; Kenefick, M., Restall, R., and Hayes, F. (2015) Birds of Trinidad and Tobago, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 188.

Photograph
The photograph was taken in extremely dark forest conditions at 1/100th of a second, f5.6 and ISO 16000. This was the highest ISO that I have ever used and the processing required some extra work to attempt to reduce the noise.