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Olive-crowned Yellowthroat | Geothlypis semiflava
Groenkruinmaskerzanger | Mascarita coronioliva
The Olive-crowned Yellowthroat is a yellowthroat of wet grassland and rank pastures in the Caribbean lowlands of southern Central America. The male has a large black mask without a pale border and an olive-green crown. In its range it is the only yellowthroat present all year.
Voice
The song is a long, rich and varied warble of clear notes, longer than the song of Common Yellowthroat. The call is a low, nasal chep.
Recording: Natasza Fontaine — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm. Fairly sturdy, with a fairly long tail. The male has a large black mask across the forehead, lores, cheeks and ear coverts that merges into the olive-green crown without a grey or white border. Upperparts olive-green, underparts entirely bright yellow with olive flanks. The female has no mask, an olive-green head with a yellowish supercilium and eye-ring and yellow underparts. Bill dark, legs pinkish brown.
Confusion species
Common Yellowthroat Geothlypis trichas is present in the same area in winter; the male has a whitish or grey band above the mask, a smaller mask and a whitish belly. Grey-crowned Yellowthroat Geothlypis poliocephala has a grey crown, only a small black mask in front of the eye and a thick, two-toned bill. Kentucky Warbler Geothlypis formosa has yellow spectacles and lives in forest undergrowth.
Habitat
Wet and damp grassland, rank pastures with tall grass, edges of freshwater marshes, ditches with dense vegetation, abandoned fields and brushy clearings; mainly in the lowlands up to about 1000 m. It searches for insects low in the dense vegetation.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Caribbean slope of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica to western Panama (Bocas del Toro). Outside the guide area in western Colombia and western Ecuador.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Best searched for in rank, wet pastures in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica, for example around Sarapiquí, where the male sings in the morning from a grass stem or a fence post.
Conservation status
Not threatened (LC). Fairly common in suitable open country; locally benefits from the conversion of forest to pasture.
Scientific name
Geothlypis semiflava | Sclater, 1860
Sclater described the species in 1860 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Geothlypis was introduced in 1847 by Cabanis. Geothlypis is Greek, from gē 'ground' and thlupis, an unidentified small bird: 'ground warbler', after its life low in dense cover. semiflava is Latin, from semi- 'half' and flavus 'yellow', after the yellow underparts and olive upperparts. The specimen the first description was based on came from Babahoyo, Ecuador.