Highland Elaenia

The highland elaenia is 16 to 19 cm (6.3 to 7.5 in) long and weighs about 14 to 24 g (0.49 to 0.85 oz). It is a large elaenia without a crest. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have a dark grayish olive head with lighter cheeks, a dusky loral spot, and a thin whitish eyering. Their upperparts are dark grayish olive. Their wings are mostly dusky with pale edges on the flight feathers. The tips of their wing coverts are yellowish and show as two bars on the closed wing. Their tail is dusky with white tips on unworn feathers. Their chin and throat are pale yellow, their breast and flanks dull olive, and their belly and undertail coverts pale yellow. Both sexes have a dark brown iris, a stubby black bill with a pinkish base to the mandible, and black legs and feet. Juveniles have dark rufescent brown upperparts and dirty grayish white underparts.

The highland elaenia is found from Azuay and Loja provinces in southern Ecuador south on the east slope of the Andes through Peru and Bolivia into northwestern Argentina as far as Tucumán Province. It inhabits the undergrowth and edges of humid subtropical and temperate forest, secondary forest, and stunted cloudforest. It also inhabits forest fragments and patches of young secondary forest. In elevation it occurs between 2,150 and 3,000 m (7,100 and 9,800 ft) in Ecuador, between 1,400 and 2,700 m (4,600 and 8,900 ft) in Peru, and mostly between 1,700 and 3,000 m (5,600 and 9,800 ft) in Bolivia and Argentina.

The highland elaenia feeds on insects and berries. It primarily forages near the top of the forest canopy but tends to remain hidden. It finds food by gleaning while perched, while briefly hovering, and with short upward sallies to take insects in mid-air.