These species are very similar in appearance and behavior, and they are notoriously difficult to differentiate.

Adults have olive-gray upperparts, darker on the wings and tail, with whitish underparts; they have a noticeable medium-width white eye ring, white wing bars and a medium length tail.

A common call is a dry whit, similar to that of other Empidonax flycatchers.

As non-breeding residents in the south of their migration range, they are passage migrants over the deserts of the south-western United States, the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Deserts, where they make their stops along the flyway.

Their breeding habitat is mountain slopes and foothills with brush and scattered trees (especially ponderosa pine) across western North America.