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Caribbean Elaenia | Elaenia martinica
Witbuikelenia | Elenia caribeña
The Caribbean Elaenia is a greyish-brown elaenia of islands in the Caribbean, with a short crest, a white crown patch and a mostly white, at most pale yellow, belly. In the guide area it lives only on islands off the Yucatán Peninsula and Belize.
Voice
A clear, somewhat husky wee-choo and a repeated pee-wee-ree-ree; mainly heard early in the morning.
Recording: Alex Jones — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
15–17 cm. Head with a short crest and a white crown patch that is sometimes visible; faint pale eye-ring. Upperparts greyish olive-brown. Wings dark with two whitish wing-bars. Throat and breast pale grey, belly white to very pale yellowish. Bill fairly long for an elaenia, dark with a pale, pinkish base to the lower mandible. Male and female are alike.
Confusion species
Yellow-bellied Elaenia Elaenia flavogaster has a fuller, often parted crest and a clearly yellow belly, and occurs mainly on the mainland. Greenish Elaenia Myiopagis viridicata is smaller, with a grey head, no crest and no distinct wing-bars.
Habitat
Dry scrub, low forest and coastal vegetation on islands, mangrove edges, gardens and yards. It eats small fruits and berries as well as insects.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
In the guide area on islands off the Yucatán Peninsula, such as Cozumel and Isla Mujeres, and on cays off Belize. Outside the guide area in the West Indies, from the Cayman Islands and Puerto Rico to the Lesser Antilles and the islands off Venezuela, and on San Andrés and Providencia.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On Cozumel it occurs regularly in gardens and scrub. An elaenia with a white belly on the islands or cays deserves extra attention, as Yellow-bellied Elaenia can also turn up there.
Conservation status
Not threatened. In the guide area restricted to a small number of islands, where it is locally common; its exact distribution across the Belize cays is not well known everywhere.
Scientific name
Elaenia martinica | (Linnaeus, 1766)
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as [Muscicapa] martinica; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Elaenia was introduced in 1836 by Sundevall. Elaenia comes from Greek elaineos 'oily, olive-coloured', after the olive-green plumage. martinica refers to Martinique, origin of the type. The specimen the first description was based on came from Martinique.