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Caribbean Elaenia | Elaenia martinica
Witbuikelenia | Elenia caribeña
The Caribbean Elaenia is the elaenia of the Caribbean islands: a medium-sized grey-brown tyrant flycatcher found on almost every island from Puerto Rico to Grenada, on the ABC Islands, the Cayman Islands and San Andrés. It is often a vocal presence in dry forest and gardens. Several subspecies are recognised within the region, among them martinica in the Lesser Antilles, barbadensis on Barbados, riisii on Puerto Rico and the ABC Islands, caymanensis on the Caymans and cinerescens on San Andrés and Providencia. In Puerto Rico it is called jui blanco.
Voice
A drawn-out pee-wee-ree-ree-ree as song and a repeated jwee-up or wit-churr as call, often at dawn and often sustained.
Recording: Alex Jones — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
15–18 cm, with a short crest that is raised slightly when excited to show a white crown stripe, but without the bushy, parted look of Yellow-bellied Elaenia. The upperparts are dull olive- to grey-brown, the face mottled grey-brown with pale lores and a faint pale eye-ring. The lower mandible has a pale base. The wings show two whitish wing bars. The throat is sooty grey, the breast pale grey, the belly whitish to dull pale yellow. The sexes are alike. Birds on Barbados are browner.
Confusion species
Yellow-bellied Elaenia Elaenia flavogaster, alongside this species on Grenada and St Vincent, has a bigger, often parted crest with more white and a distinctly yellower belly. Lesser Antillean Flycatcher Myiarchus oberi and Puerto Rican Flycatcher Myiarchus antillarum are larger, more upright and show rufous in the wings or tail. Lesser Antillean Pewee Contopus latirostris lacks distinct wing bars and has ochre underparts. Vireos such as Black-whiskered Vireo Vireo altiloquus have head stripes, no wing bars and a thicker bill.
Habitat
Dry and semi-evergreen forest, coastal woodland, thorn and beach scrub, mangrove edges, the canopy and edges of moister forest, and gardens and parks with trees, from sea level to about 700 m. It takes insects and eats many small fruits and berries, picked from twigs or plucked in a short flight. The nest is a shallow, flimsy cup of twigs.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Resident in Puerto Rico with Vieques and Culebra, the US and British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Sint Maarten and Saint-Martin, Saint-Barthélemy, St Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and Barbados, and on Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire, the Cayman Islands and San Andrés and Providencia. A few records from Trinidad and from the southern Cuban islands are uncertain. Outside the region on islands off the Yucatán Peninsula.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On most islands of the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico and the ABC Islands one of the common birds of dry forest, scrub and gardens; found in the Guánica dry forest in Puerto Rico and in Christoffel Park on Curaçao. It calls most early in the morning.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The world population is estimated at at least half a million mature birds, with a presumed declining trend. Hurricanes and the loss of dry forest can affect local populations.
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.