Gray-bellied Shrike-Tyrant

The grey-bellied shrike-tyrant is 23 to 24.5 cm (9.1 to 9.6 in) long. Adult males of the nominate subspecies have a gray-brown crown, a whitish supercilium, rufous-tinged ear coverts, and black and white streaked cheeks. Their upperparts are gray-brown. Their wings are mostly gray-brown with whitish edges on the secondaries and pale grayish coverts. Their tail is mostly black with narrow white edges on the outer webs of the outer feathers. Their throat is white with heavy black streaks, their breast is pale brown, their flanks are washed with buffy, and their belly is pale gray-brown to whitish. Adult females have dark brown streaks on their throat and are otherwise like males. Juveniles are browner above than adults, with pale cinnamon-brown underparts and few streaks on the throat. Subspecies A. m. andecola is larger and slightly darker than the nominate, with a tawny tinge to the vent area. Adults of both sexes of both subspecies have a dark iris, a straight hooked bill with a dark brown maxilla and an orange mandible, and dusky legs and feet.

Subspecies A. m. andecola of the grey-bellied shrike-tyrant is the more northerly of the two. It is found from Puno Department in southern Peru south through western Bolivia into the eastern part of northern Chile's Tarapacá Region and northwestern Argentina as far as Catamarca and Tucumán provinces. Sources differ on the range of the nominate subspecies. According to BirdLife International (BLI) and Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Birds of the World it is found from southern Bolivia south through western Paraguay and southern Uruguay into Argentina to central Santa Cruz Province. However, the map in Peña's Birds of Southern South America and Antarctica does not include Uruguay in the species' range, and the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society notes it only as a vagrant in that country. (Cornell does say that there are no recent records in Uruguay.) The SACC also has a record of the species as a vagrant in Brazil and Cornell notes that as well. The Clements taxonomy includes Uruguay but not Bolivia in the nominate's range. The grey-bellied shrike-tyrant primarily inhabits steppe and puna grassland with shrubs and boulders. In the austral winter it also occurs in agricultural fields. In elevation it ranges overall from sea level to 5,000 m (16,000 ft); in Peru it is found between 3,800 and 4,100 m (12,500 and 13,500 ft).

The grey-bellied shrike-tyrant feeds on insects; small mammals, reptiles, and amphibians; bird eggs and nestlings; and occasionally on fruits. It perches on a rock or shrub and typically captures prey by dropping on it from the perch, by running on the ground, and in mid-air by "hawking".