Yellow-bellied Flycatcher

How to find it

Look for it flycatching in the lower or middle levels of the forest. Learn its calls before you go, since that is the main way to find it. Listen for the soft, rising call and the tu-wee notes from dense vegetation. Streamside thickets, forest edges and shade coffee are all worth a slow scan. Because it forages discreetly, patience pays more than speed.

How to recognise it

This is a small bird, about 13 to 15 cm long.

Adults are greenish above and yellowish below, with the yellow strongest on the throat and a dusky wash across the chest. The eye ring is pale and bold. The wing bars are pale against dark wings.

The bill is broad and flat, with an orange-pink lower half. The tail is fairly short compared with other Empidonax flycatchers.

Together, the yellowish underparts and the bold eye ring are what separate it from its lookalikes.

What it sounds like

Recording: Dan MacNeal, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

It forages in the lower to middle levels of the forest. It catches insects in midair or picks them from leaves. A Costa Rican account describes how it searches the foliage, then flies to a perch different from the one it used before.

Away from its northern breeding grounds it is inconspicuous. It forages discreetly in dense vegetation and is usually noticed by its soft call rather than by sight.

Where it lives

On the wintering grounds it uses dense vegetation near streams, forest edges and semi-open areas. It is most common in dense rainforest, higher elevation evergreen forest, shade coffee and pine-oak forest.

In Costa Rica it is found in humid lowland and montane forests in winter, especially in reserves and secondary forest, and mostly in the lowlands. Winter residents reach about 1200 m on the mountains of the central part of the country, and fall migrants regularly climb to at least 1500 m.

When to see it

Southbound migrants arrive from September, with the flow picking up in October and running into early November. A Costa Rica birding guide says they can be heard chipping from the woods between late October and early March.

Similar birds

Costa Rica has several Empidonax flycatchers, but only the Yellow-bellied is a common winter resident. The other migrant Empids can be identified with a good look or when they call. The resident Yellowish Flycatcher has an even yellower belly, so the name can mislead, and its eye ring extends visibly behind the eye. It lives between about 800 and 2,500 m, while the Yellow-bellied is found mostly in the lowlands. The Black-capped Flycatcher is the only one with a black cap.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Beyond the Costa Rican name Mosquerito Vientriamarillo, this species has other Spanish names elsewhere, including mosquerito oliva in Mexico, bobito amarillo in Cuba and mosquero panza amarilla in Honduras.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it as a migrant (M), and its global conservation status is Least Concern.