Yellow-bellied elaenia

Yellow-bellied elaenia
File:Flickr - Dario Sanches - GUARACAVA-DE-BARRIGA-AMARELA (Elaenia flavogaster).jpg
Yellow-bellied elaenia at Registro, São Paulo State, Brazil
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Tyrannidae
Genus:	Elaenia
Species:	E. flavogaster
Binomial name
Elaenia flavogaster (Thunberg, 1822)
Subspecies
4, see text

The yellow-bellied elaenia (Elaenia flavogaster) is a small bird of the tyrant flycatcher family. It breeds from southern Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula through Central and South America as far as northern Argentina, and on Trinidad and Tobago.

Adults are 16.5 cm (6.5 in) long and weigh 24 g (0.85 oz). 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.

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 – (Thunberg, 1822): 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

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.

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 (Callithrix jacchus) 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.

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

External links

• BirdLife species factsheet for Elaenia flavogaster
• Yellow-bellied elaenia videos, photos, and sounds at the Internet Bird Collection
• Yellow-bellied elaenia photo gallery at VIREO (Drexel University)
• Yellow-bellied elaenia Stamps from Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname at bird-stamps.org
• Yellow-bellied elaenia species account at NeotropicalBirds (Cornell University)

• Interactive range map of Elaenia flavogaster at IUCN Red List maps
• Audio recordings of Yellow-bellied elaenia on Xeno-canto.