Golden-bellied Flycatcher

The golden-bellied flycatcher is 20 to 22 cm (7.9 to 8.7 in) long and weighs about 39 to 42.5 g (1.4 to 1.5 oz). The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies M. h. hemichrysus have a thinly black-streaked, dusky grayish olive or dark sooty gray, crown and nape with a large, usually hidden, yellow patch in the center of the crown. They have a wide white supercilium, a wide blackish stripe through the lores and ear coverts, and a grayish olive or dusky cheek with a whitish stripe through it. Their upperparts are mostly olive green with a greenish rump and uppertail coverts; the last have cinnamon edges at their tips. Their wings are dusky grayish brown with thin cinnamon or cinnamon-buff edges on the greater coverts. The inner primaries and outer secondaries have thin cinnamon edges and the inner secondaries have wider whitish yellow edges. Their tail is mostly dark grayish brown with wide pale cinnamon or cinnamon-buff edges on the feathers' inner webs. Their chin is whitish, their throat canary-yellow, and rest of their underparts deep lemon-yellow with faint indistinct olive streaks on the breast. Subspecies M. h. minor is slightly darker than the nominate with more brownish olive upperparts. M. h. cinerascens is essentially the same as the nominate. Juveniles do not have a yellow patch on the crown. …

The golden-bellied flycatcher has a disjunct distribution. The nominate subspecies is the most northerly of the three. It is found from the Cordillera de Guanacaste in northern Costa Rica south to Veraguas Province in western Panama. Subspecies M. h. minor is found from Darién Province in easternmost Panama south through all three ranges of the Colombian Andes and the Andes of Ecuador into Peru north of the Marañon River. M. h. cinerascens is found in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia, the Serranía del Perijá on the Colombia-Venezuela border, and in the mountains of western and northern Venezuela from Zulia and Táchira east to Sucre and Monagas states. The golden-bellied flycatcher inhabits the canopy and edges of humid to wet montane forest, especially cloudforest, in the upper tropical and subtropical zones. It is often found along roads and watercourses and at the edges of natural and human-made clearings. It also occurs in plantations and other human-modified habitats. In Costa Rica and Panama it is found between about 800 and 1,800 m (2,600 and 5,900 ft) on the Caribbean slope and up to 2,300 m (7,500 ft) on the Pacific slope. It occurs between 1,000 and 2,900 m (3,300 and 9,500 ft) in Colombia, mostly between 1,000 and 2,200 m (3,300 and 7,200 ft) in Ecuador, and between 600 and 2,300 m (2,000 and 7,500 ft) in Venezuela.

The golden-bellied flycatcher feeds on insects and fruit; it appears to be partial to adult butterflies and moths. It usually forages in pairs or small family groups and rarely joins mixed-species feeding flocks. It perches from the mid-level to near the crown of a tree and takes prey and fruits mostly with short upward sallies to glean it from vegetation. It takes some insect prey in mid-air by hawking.