Yellow-bellied elaenia

Appearance

Adults are 16.5 cm long and weigh 24 g. They have olive-brown upperparts, a white eye ring, a bushy divided crest and a white crown patch in the parting. The throat is pale and the breast greyish, with pale yellow lower underparts. The call is a nasal ''breeer'', and the song is a wheezing ''zhu-zhee-zhu-zhee''.

Naming

4 subspecies are recognized:
⤷  ''E. f. subpagana'' – Sclater, PL, 1860: found from southeastern Mexico to Costa Rica and on Coiba Island, Panama
⤷  ''E. f. pallididorsalis'' – Aldrich, 1937: found in Panama
⤷  ''E. f. flavogaster'' – : nominate, found in Colombia, Venezuela, Trinidad, and the southern Lesser Antilles, the Guianas, Brazil except western and central Amazonas, southeastern Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay and northeastern Argentina
⤷  ''E. f. semipagana'' – Sclater, PL, 1862: found in southwestern Colombia, western and southern Ecuador and northwestern Peru

Status

The yellow-bellied elaenia is a common and wide-ranging bird, not considered threatened by the IUCN.

Behavior

This is a common bird in semi-open woodland, scrub, gardens and cultivation. The yellow-bellied elaenia is a noisy and conspicuous bird which feeds on berries and insects. The latter are usually caught from mid-air after the bird sallies from a perch, and sometimes picked up from plants. The species will also join mixed-species feeding flocks on occasion, typically staying quite some distance up in the trees.

Reproduction

It makes a cup nest and lays two cream eggs with reddish blotches at the larger end. The female incubates for 16 days, with about the same period to fledging. Omnivorous mammals as small as the common marmoset will eagerly plunder yellow-bellied elaenia nests in the undergrowth—perhaps more often during the dry season when fruits are scarce—despite the birds' attempts to defend their offspring.