All species › Passerines › Tyrant flycatchers › Blue Mountain Elaenia
Blue Mountain Elaenia | Elaenia fallax
Blue Mountain-elenia | Fiofío de las Montañas Azules
The Blue Mountain Elaenia is a medium-sized, inconspicuous tyrant flycatcher of Jamaica's montane forest. Until 2025 it was treated together with Hispaniolan Elaenia as a single species, Greater Antillean Elaenia; on the basis of DNA, small plumage differences and above all voice, the two are now separated. In the breeding season it is heard more often than seen.
Voice
The song is a buzzy note followed by short repeated notes, roughly tseerrr-che-wit-che-wit. Also a long, downslurred, plaintive whistle.
Recording: Garrett MacDonald — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
14.5–16 cm, with a rounded head and a small, narrow bill. Head and upperparts are dark olive-brown; a partly concealed white crown patch is rarely visible. Pale lores and a pale eye-ring mark the face. The dark wings have two distinct white to greenish-white wing bars and pale edges to the flight feathers. Throat and breast are greyish white with faint streaking, the belly pale yellow. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Jamaican Elaenia Myiopagis cotta is smaller and greener and lacks distinct wing bars. Jamaican Vireo Vireo modestus has a pale eye, a thicker bill and yellower underparts. Jamaican Pewee Contopus pallidus is darker, without distinct wing bars, and perches upright on a lookout. Hispaniolan Elaenia Elaenia cherriei is very similar but lives only on Hispaniola.
Habitat
The interior and edges of humid montane forest and cloud forest, mainly between about 500 and 2000 m, and open country with scattered trees such as coffee plantations and mountain scrub. After breeding, some birds spread from the eastern highlands over larger parts of the island. It searches the canopy for insects and berries.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Endemic to Jamaica, mainly in the Blue Mountains and John Crow Mountains in the east; outside the breeding season also elsewhere and lower on the island. It occurs nowhere else. The map also shows records from Hispaniola, which refer to Hispaniolan Elaenia.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the breeding season best in the Blue Mountains, for example around Hardwar Gap and along the roads to Holywell, where the song carries from the montane forest. The birds are then heard more often than seen; the wing bars separate them from Jamaican Elaenia.
Conservation status
Not threatened and fairly common in the higher montane forest, although numbers are thought to be declining through forest loss.
Scientific name
Elaenia fallax | Sclater, 1861
Sclater described the species in 1861 as Elainea fallax; 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. fallax is Latin for 'deceptive', as this species closely resembles other elaenias. The specimen the first description was based on came from Jamaica.