The brown-crested flycatcher (Myiarchus tyrannulus) is a passerine bird in the tyrant flycatcher family Tyrannidae. It is found from the southwestern United States south through Mexico and Central America to Costa Rica; on Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Trinidad, and Tobago; and in every mainland South American country except Chile and possibly Ecuador.
Taxonomy and systematics
The brown-crested flycatcher has a complicated taxonomic history. Its formal description is credited to Statius Müller in his 1776 supplement to earlier work by Carl Linnaeus and Martinus Houttuyn. He coined the binomial Muscicapa tyrannulus, placing it in the Old World flycatcher family.
As of 2025 the brown-crested flycatcher has these seven subspecies: Subspecies M. t. cooperi and M. t. brachyurus were both originally described as full species in genus Myiarchus. M. t. bahiae was originally named M. t. chlorepiscius.
Prior to the 1980s the American Ornithological Society (AOS) treated M. t. magister, M. t. cooperi, M. t. cozumelae, and M. t. insularum as a species, M. magister, called "Wied's crested flycatcher". The AOS now treats them as the "magister group" within M. tyrannulus. It further suggests that M. t. cooperi, M. t. cozumelae, and M. t. insularum should form their own "cooperi group" separate from M. t. magister. It treats M. t. tyrannulus and M. t. bahiae as the "tyrannulus group" and treats M. t. brachyurus as its own group. The Clements taxonomy follows the AOS and its suggestion with four groups within the species: "brown-crested flycatcher (Arizona)" (M. t. magister), "brown-crested flycatcher (Cooper's)" (M. t. cooperi, M. t. cozumelae, and M. t. insularum), "brown-crested flycatcher (Ometepe)" (M. t. brachyurus), and "brown-crested flycatcher (South American)" (M. t. tyrannulus and M. t. bahiae).
In addition, what is now the Grenada flycatcher (M. nugator) appears to belong within M. tyrannulus.
The subspecies are weakly differentiated and there are intermediate forms between some pairs of subspecies where their ranges meet or overlap. Sight records of M. t. tyrannulus in Ecuador lead the South American Classification Committee of the AOS to call it hypothetical in that country.
In Colombia subspecies M. t. tyrannulus inhabits dryish woodlands and savanna under of elevation. In Venezuela it occurs in a wider variety of habitats including arid scrublands, dry to moist woodlands, gallery forest, and mangroves. There it ranges up to north of the Orinoco River and to south of it. In Brazil it primarily inhabits riparian areas and both open and dense woodlands. In Brazil M. t. bahiae inhabits cerrado as well as the same landscapes as tyrannulus. In Brazil both of these subspecies range from sea level to .
Behavior
Movement
The brown-crested flycatcher is a partial migrant. The two northern subspecies withdraw from the U.S. and northern Mexico to winter south to northern Central America. They usually leave the U.S. by mid-August and return in May. Some other subspecies are thought to make some limited movements.