Olive Flycatcher

The olive tufted flycatcher is 12 to 13 cm (4.7 to 5.1 in) long and weighs about 8.5 g (0.30 oz). The sexes have the same plumage and both have an erect pointed crest. Adults have an olive crown, a pale spot above the lores, and a thin buff-white eye-ring on an otherwise olive face. Their upperparts are olive. Their wings are dusky with grayish olive ends on the coverts that show as two wing bars. They have faint pale edges on their secondaries and tertials. Their tail is dusky. Their throat, breast, and flanks are olive with a light ochre tinge on the breast; their central belly is a yellower olive. They have a dark iris, a black maxilla, an orange-yellow mandible, and blackish legs and feet.

The olive tufted flycatcher is found in the Andes from southern Amazonas Department in far northern Peru south into northwestern Bolivia as far as Cochabamba Department. It also occurs disjunctly on Cerro Chinguela on the border of northern Peru's Piura and Cajamarca departments and its range possibly extends further north into southern Ecuador. It inhabits humid montane forest, where it favors the edges and openings within it such as those caused by fallen trees. In elevation it overall ranges between 1,000 and 2,300 m (3,300 and 7,500 ft) but in Peru is found only above 1,400 m (4,600 ft).

The olive tufted flycatcher feeds on insects. It typically forages singly or in pairs at any level of the forest. It sits upright on a perch and captures prey in mid-air with sallies from it ("hawking"). It often returns to the same perch, and usually "shivers" its wings and tail when landing. It regularly but not exclusively joins mixed-species feeding flocks.