Gray-tailed Piha

The grey-tailed piha is 23 to 24 cm (9.1 to 9.4 in) long and weighs about 70 to 90 g (2.5 to 3.2 oz). The sexes have similar plumage. Adult males have a mostly olive head with blackish lores, yellow flecks on the ear coverts, a thin pale eye-ring, and a partially hidden black crest in the middle of the crown. Their upperparts are mostly bright olive green. Their uppertail coverts and tail are ash gray. Their wings are mostly grayish brown with olive coverts, tertials, and the edges of the secondaries. Their throat is pale yellow that blends to bright yellow olive on the breast; the feathers of both areas have almost invisible pale streaks. Their belly is gray and their undertail coverts yellowish white. Adult females have little or no crest on the crown. Both sexes have a dark brown iris, a dark horn to black bill with a paler base to the mandible, and bluish gray to gray legs and feet.

The grey-tailed piha is found on the eastern slope of the Andes from far southwestern Colombia south through Ecuador into far northwestern Peru and further south in Peru intermittently to Madre de Dios Department. In much of Peru it occurs on outlying ridges rather than the main chain of the Andes. It inhabits humid montane forest in the foothills and lower subtropical zones, where it mostly occurs from the forest's understory to its mid-story. In elevation it ranges between 600 and 1,500 m (2,000 and 4,900 ft) in Colombia, between 500 and 1,400 m (1,600 and 4,600 ft) in Ecuador, and between 800 and 1,350 m (2,600 and 4,400 ft) in Peru.

The grey-tailed piha feed son fruit and arthropods but details are lacking. It usually forages singly and seldom joins mixed-species feeding flocks. It perches and moves quietly and inconspicuously, taking prey and plucking fruit while perched or while briefly hovering after a short flight. It also takes prey in mid-air.