Slaty Elaenia

The slaty elaenia is 15 to 16 cm (5.9 to 6.3 in) long and weighs 18 to 20 g (0.63 to 0.71 oz). It is a small elaenia with a slight crest. Adult males have a slate-gray head with slightly paler cheeks, a thin white eyering, and a partially concealed white patch in the middle of the crown. Their upperparts are slate-gray. Their wings are mostly dusky gray; they are slightly paler on the edges of the flight feathers and the tips of the coverts. The latter show as two very faint bars on the closed wing. Their tail is dusky. Their throat is whitish to pale gray, their breast and flanks gray, and their belly and undertail coverts whitish. Adult females have an olive wash on their upperparts, more prominent and ochraceous-tinged wing bars than the male, an olive-gray throat and breast, and a yellowish white belly. Both sexes have a dark brown iris, a flat, wide, black bill with a dull orangish base to the mandible, and black legs and feet.

The slaty elaenia breeds on the eastern slope of the Andes from western Santa Cruz Department in Bolivia south into northwestern Argentina as far as La Rioja Province. Following the breeding season in migrates north through eastern Peru into southeastern Colombia and eastern Venezuela. It has appeared as a vagrant during migration in eastern Ecuador and as an "overshoot" vagrant on Trinidad. There are no confirmed records in Brazil. During the breeding season the slaty elaenia inhabits somewhat open woodlands and the edges of denser forest, often along watercourses. In this period it ranges in elevation between 500 and 2,000 m (1,640 and 6,562 ft). It is believed to use the same types of habitat during its passage through Peru. In Colombia and Venezuela it also occurs mostly on forest edges and somewhat open landscapes. In Venezuela it reaches an elevation of 900 m (3,000 ft).

The slaty elaenia feeds on insects and small fruits. It usually forages singly or in pairs; on its wintering grounds it infrequently joins mixed-species feeding flocks. It captures prey and plucks fruit by gleaning while perched and while briefly hovering, and also captures flying insects on the wing.