Ochre-crowned Greenlet

How to find it

Check mixed flocks passing through dense forest, where this greenlet joins understory flocks with antbirds, Golden-crowned Warbler and Red-crowned Ant-Tanager. Look for a pair turning over leaves in the understory and midstory. Learn the whistle first, since hearing it is often the first sign. At Carara, a guide on a morning forest walk near headquarters in April listed it among the typical mixed flocks, alongside Lesser Greenlet. In the south Pacific lowlands one was heard but not seen, so be ready for brief or partial views.

How to recognise it

This is a small bird, about 11.5 cm long and 11 g. Look for these marks:

A tawny crown, brightest on the forehead, which gives the species its name.

An obviously pale eye.

An olive back.

Pale grayish underparts, more olive on the breast.

Reddish tail feathers and rufous undertail coverts, which other greenlets lack.

Those last details are easy to miss on a bird that never sits still in shade, so the pale eye and the tawny forehead are often the first things to catch.

What it sounds like

Recording: Tommy Andriollo, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

It is restless and acrobatic, making frequent short flights between trees and sometimes hanging upside down while it gleans insects from leaves. It forages in pairs, turning over foliage and searching the leaves of bushes and saplings. The pairs travel inside mixed flocks, and the group moves so loosely that counting the birds is hard. Its diet is mostly invertebrates, with some fruit.

The nest is a cup of plant fibres partly covered with moss. It sits in a tree fork 2 to 7 m up and is held in place with spider webs, and both parents feed the chicks.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica it lives in mature wet forest and is found up to about 1,300 m (4,300 ft). It keeps to the dim understory of dense forest, not scrub, canopy or edges.

One form covers the Caribbean slope. The subspecies pacificus occurs in the southeast and on the Pacific slope from Carara southward. The species is listed as present in Corcovado National Park, the protective zone of La Selva Biological Station and the Cordillera Volcanica Central forest reserve.

When to see it

It is a year-round resident, so it is not a seasonal visitor. Breeding is reported from March to May, but that tells you little about the best time to visit.

Similar birds

Lesser Greenlet shares the same flocks at Carara. Unlike other greenlets, the Ochre-crowned has reddish tail feathers and rufous undertail coverts. It stays in forest understory, and its whistled song is very simple.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

In Costa Rica the bird is called verdillo leonado, and a variant spelling, ferdillo leonado, is also listed. Spanish names differ by country, for example verdillo corona pálida in Honduras.

Status and conservation

The AOCR lists it as a resident (R), and it is considered fairly common in Costa Rica, though its taxonomy is unsettled and some authorities split it into several species.