Black-headed Tody-Flycatcher

How to find it

Listen for the thin chipping calls, then scan the treetops, because it stays high in the canopy. Views are usually fleeting. Flowering trees are worth checking, since it feeds there. Nest sites are a good place to watch, as a pair gave good views in the canopy in the Caribbean foothills. Now and then a bird drops low: one flicked through roadside trees near a bridge at Virgen del Socorro, unusually low for the species.

How to recognise it

Look for these marks:

A glossy black head, with a white throat.

Bright yellow underparts and an olive-yellow back.

Black wings with two yellow wingbars.

A large, straight, black bill.

A dark eye with no eyering.

Adults measure about 8 to 10 cm and weigh around 6 g. Males and females look alike. Young birds are duller, with a paler yellow belly and a throat tinged with yellow. In Costa Rica the useful contrast is the black head against the olive back, together with the white throat and the dark eye.

What it sounds like

Recording: Niels Krabbe, CC BY-SA 4.0, source, read 5 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

It rarely joins mixed-species flocks and usually forages alone or in pairs, taking a range of insect prey. It often feeds in flowering trees, where it snatches flies.

On nesting, a pair was watched in Costa Rica building high in the canopy above hummingbird feeders. The guide noted that these birds almost always nest beside a wasp nest, though none was visible nearby that time. Nest sites are a good place to watch.

Where it lives

It favours the canopy and edge of humid forest and tall second growth, and it occurs up to about 1500 m. In Costa Rica it lives only in the east of the country, with none on the Pacific side or in the north.

Guided groups have recorded it in the Arenal area, in the Caribbean foothills and in the Sarapiqui lowlands of the Caribbean slope. It has also turned up on the Cartago and Limón border.

Similar birds

The look-alike is the Common Tody-Flycatcher, which has a pale eye that stands out against a dark face. The Black-headed has a dark eye, a white throat and a black head that contrasts with an olive back. The Common also gives a repeated clicking call and is a garden bird below about 1600 m. Only two Todirostrum tody-flycatchers occur in Central America, and the Common ranges further north.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

In Costa Rica the bird is called Espatulilla Cabecinegra, a name shared with Colombia, Panama and Ecuador. Elsewhere it is also called Titirijí Cabecinegro and Titirijí de Cabeza Negra. Espatulilla means 'little spatula' and refers to the long, thick bill of the tody-flycatchers.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it as a resident (R), and the IUCN rates it Least Concern, assessed in 2021, though the population is thought to be declining.

Photography tips

Photo chances are best when a bird drops low. One individual at Lagunas de Bonilla sat almost at eye level, which is unusual for a treetop species. Nest sites are also a good place to watch, since a nesting pair gave good canopy views above forest hummingbird feeders.