Tawny-crested Tanager

The tawny-crested tanager is about 14 cm (5.5 in) long and weighs 14 to 21 g (0.49 to 0.74 oz). The species has a short, somewhat thin, bill and is sexually dimorphic. Adult males are mostly glossy black. They have a rather short tawny to dark yellow crest that provides its English name, a small seldom-visible white patch on the bend of the wing, and white underwing coverts. Adult females have a grayish brown head and dark olive-brown upperparts. Their wing coverts, flight feathers, and tail are dusky. Their underparts are a slightly paler olive-brown than the upperparts, with a still paler throat. Both sexes have a reddish brown iris, a black maxilla, a black mandible with a pale greenish gray to bluish gray base, and blackish legs. An analysis of measurements taken from more than 200 adult specimens showed positive relationships between latitude and four morphological characters: wing length, tail length, bill length and bill width. However, the size and color of its crest is variable but shows no geographical pattern.

The tawny-crested tanager is found from eastern Honduras south on the Caribbean slope through Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama into northwestern Colombia. In Colombia it is found at the northern ends of the Western and Central Andes to the central Magdalena River valley and south along the Pacific slope and into northwestern Ecuador as far as northern Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas Province. It inhabits "Tropical Lowland Evergreen Forest, Montane Evergreen Forest, [and] Secondary Forest" [capitals in original]. It favors areas of low dense vegetation such as forest edges, overgrown secondary forest, and shrubby cut areas and clearings. One source gives its upper elevational limit as 900 m (3,000 ft). However, it reaches 1,500 m (4,900 ft) in Colombia and 1,200 m (3,900 ft) in Costa Rica though it is uncommon above 800 m (2,600 ft) in the latter country. It reaches 750 m (2,500 ft) in Honduras and is mostly below 800 m (2,600 ft) in Ecuador.

The tawny-crested tanager's diet has not been studied but is known to include insects. It typically forages in large flocks of its own species and sometimes also joins mixed-species feeding flocks for a short time. The flocks move quickly with much commotion, taking prey from foliage by pecking, lunging, short flutter-flights, and sometimes while hanging downward.