Yellow-winged Cacique, Cassiculus melanicterus
Yellow-winged Cacique, Cassiculus melanicterus, Females. Birds photographed in the greater Zihuantanejo area, Guerrero, March 2018. Photographs and identifications courtesy of Ron Woheau, Zihuantanejo.
Yellow-winged Cacique, Cassiculus melanicterus, Males. Birds photographed in the greater Zihuantanejo area, Guerrero, March 2018. Photographs and identifications courtesy of Ron Woheau, Zihuantanejo.
Yellow-winged Cacique, Cassiculus melanicterus. Male. Bird photographed in the greater Puerto Vallarta area, Guerrero, March 2014. Photograph and identifications courtesy of Dr. Tom Bartol, Carlsbad, California.
Yellow-winged Cacique, Cassiculus melanicterus, Males. Birds photographed within Parque National Huatulco, Huatulco, Oaxaca, March 2021. Photographs and identification courtesy of Marina Sutormina, Stockholm, Sweden.
Yellow-winged Cacique, Cassiculus melanicterus, Male. Bird photographed in Copala, Sonora, April 2019. Photograph and identification courtesy of David F Smith, Alamos, Sonora.
Yellow-winged Cacique, Cassiculus melanicterus, Male. Photograph taken within the greater Palm Springs area of southern California, March 2021. Photography courtesy of Dr. Tom Bartol, Carlsbad, California.
The Yellow-winged Cacique, Cassiculus melanicterus, is a member of the Icteriidae Family of Troupials and Allies including Grackles, New World Blackbirds and Orioles, that has one hundred five individual species that have been placed into thirty genera, and the only global species of the Cassiculus Genus. They are also known as the Crested Cacique and the Mexican Cacique and in Mexico as cacique Mexicano.
The Yellow-winged Cacique is mid-sized to large and slender in stature and strikingly colored. They are sexually dimorphic with the males being larger than the females. The males are a glossy black with a conspicuous long nuchal crest that flops around when the bird moves. Their upperwing-covers are contrastingly yellow, the lower back to uppertail coverts are yellow, and their tail is black, broadly edged with yellow. The females have a shorter crest, are smaller and duller in color being slate gray and their tail feathers have olive margins. Their bill is long and whitish with variable gray, blue or yellow tinges, their iris is dark brown, and their legs are dark gray.
The Yellow-winged Cacique are found in dry forest and thorn scrub and in wetter tropical forests, away from the greener and denser subtropical forest at elevations up to 1,000 m (3,300 feet). They are sedentary and non-migratory. They primarily consume insects and other invertebrates that is supplemented with seasonal fruits and nectar. They and know to forage in mixed-species flocks with other Blackbirds. They are a loud and conspicuous species known for their unique song. They nest as solitarily pairs or in small colonies of up to ten nests. Their nests are frequently parasitized by the Bronzed Cowbird, Molothrus aeneus. The Yellow-winged Cacique is poorly studied, and their biology and behavioral patterns have not been documented.
The Yellow-winged Cacique is endemic to El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico and found along the west coast of Mexico within the Pacific Slope from Sinaloa south to Chiapas.
From a conservation perspective the Yellow-winged Cacique is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. They are utilized by the caged bird trade and their populations have expanded geographically which is attributed to releases and escapes.