Plain-crested Elaenia

The plain-crested elaenia is 12.5 to 15 cm (4.9 to 5.9 in) long and weighs about 18 g (0.63 oz). It is a small elaenia with a conspicuous crest. The two subspecies and the sexes have essentially the same plumage. Adults have a dull olive-brown head with lighter brown cheeks and a thin whitish eyering. Their upperparts are dull olive-brown. 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 grayish white, their breast grayish olive, and their belly and undertail coverts pale yellow. Both sexes of both subspecies have a dark brown iris, a black maxilla, a pale mandible with a brownish tip, and black legs and feet.

The nominate subspecies of the plain-crested elaenia has by far the larger range of the two. It is found contiguously from east of the Andes in Venezuela, through the Guianas, throughout eastern Brazil in an area roughly bounded by the states of Amapá, Rio Grande do Norte, northeastern Bahia, São Paulo and western Mato Grosso, and from the last slightly into northeastern Bolivia's Santa Cruz Department. It also occurs in isolated populations in Caquetá and Vaupés departments in southeastern Colombia, in Cuzco and Madre de Dios departments in southeastern Peru, in La Paz and Beni departments in northern Bolivia, and in Rondônia state in western Amazonian Brazil. Subspecies E. c. alticola is found only in the tepuis of southeastern Venezuela and adjacent northwestern Brazil. The plain-crested elaenia primarily inhabits savanna; it also occurs in open park-like savanna woodlands, scrubby areas, and cerrado. One of its Peruvian populations is in the dry middle valley of the Urubamba River at about 1,100 m (3,600 ft) of elevation. It otherwise occurs from sea level to 1,500 m (4,900 ft) in Brazil and 1,350 m (4,400 ft) in Venezuela, but only to about 200 m (660 ft) in Colombia.

The plain-crested elaenia feeds on insects and berries. It forages singly or in pairs, usually near the top of shrubs and trees, and mostly by gleaning while perched or while briefly hovering.