Mottle-backed Elaenia

About the Mottle-backed Elaenia

The mottle-backed elaenia (Elaenia gigas) is a species of bird in subfamily Elaeniinae of family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is found in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. The mottle-backed elaenia is monotypic.

The mottle-backed elaenia is 17.5 to 18.5 cm (6.9 to 7.3 in) long. It is a large elaenia with a prominent split crest that can look like horns. The sexes have the same plumage. Adults have an olive-brown head with lighter cheeks, a faint whitish eyering, and a large white patch on the crown. Their upperparts are olive-brown with paler green-olive edges on the back feathers that give a mottled or streaked appearance. Their wings are mostly dusky; the flight feathers have whitish edges and the tips of the coverts are whitish. The latter show as two bars on the closed wing. Their tail is dusky. Their throat is gray, their breast and flanks gray with olive streaks or cloudiness, and their belly and undertail coverts pale yellow. Both sexes have a dark brown iris, a black bill with a dull pinkish base to the mandible, and black legs and feet.

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