Gray-crowned Yellowthroat

The grey-crowned yellowthroat is about 14 cm (5.5 in) long and weighs about 13 to 16 g (0.46 to 0.56 oz). The species is sexually dimorphic. It has a long graduated tail and a stout bill with a visibly curved culmen. Adult males of the nominate subspecies G. p. poliocephala have a mostly olive-gray head with a gray crown, black lores, and white crescents above and below the eye. Their nape, upperparts, wings, and tail are grayish olive-brown. Their throat, breast, and undertail coverts are yellow, their flanks washed with buff, and their belly yellowish white. Females have grayish lores, yellowish white eye crescents, and a brownish olive wash on the rest of the head. Their upper- and underparts are like the male's. The other subspecies differ from the nominate and each other thus:

G. p. ralphi: grayer upperparts and tail and paler and whiter underparts G. p. palpebralis: male has darker crown; both sexes more olive above and richer yellow below G. p. caninucha: similar to palpebralis but no eye crescents and more black on face G. p. icterotis: more olive above and richer yellow below but duller overall; olive-gray crown G. p. ridgwayi: similar to caninucha but greener above and brighter yellow below Both sexes of all subspecies have a dark iris, a blackish bill, and dark brownish legs and feet.

The subspecies of the grey-crowned yellowthroat are found thus:

G. p. poliocephala: Pacific slope of Mexico from northern Sinaloa south to extreme western Oaxaca G. p. ralphi: Gulf slope of Mexico in Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosí (but see below) G. p. palpebralis: from Veracruz and the Yucatán Peninsula south on the Caribbean slope through Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua into northern Costa Rica G. p. caninucha: from eastern Oaxaca south on the Pacific slope through Guatemala and El Salvador into Honduras G. p. icterotis: Pacific slope of Nicaragua to central Costa Rica G. p. ridgwayi: southwestern Costa Rica into western Panama's Chiriquí Province Subspecies G. p. ralphi was formerly resident in extreme southern Texas; "today it is only a very rare straggler there". The grey-crowned yellowthroat inhabits semi-arid to damp grassy landscapes such as shrubby fields, hedgerows, scrublands, savanna, and sugarcane plantations. In elevation it is mostly between sea level and 1,500 m (4,900 ft) but locally reaches about 2,000 m (6,600 ft). It reaches 1,750 m (5,700 ft) in northern Central America.

The grey-crowned yellowthroat feeds on insects and other invertebrates. It usually forages by gleaning in low vegetation though sometimes on the ground.