SILKY FLYCATCHER

any of four bird species that constitute the subfamily Ptilogonatinae (family Bombycillidae), found in dry, brushy regions from Nevada south to Panama. These soft plumaged, broad-billed, crested birds are about 19 centimetres (7.5 inches) long. All are arboreal. Their basic diet consists of mistletoe berries, supplemented with insects taken by darting from a perch like a true flycatcher. In the best known of the group, the phainopepla (Phainopepla nitens), the male is black and the female gray; both parents incubate the dark-spotted, pale-gray eggs and help care for the young. Ptilogonys species are gray with yellow sides, and the black-and-yellow silky flycatcher (Phainoptila melanoxantha) is similar, but the male has purplish-black upper parts and the female a dark-green back.