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Band-tailed Barbthroat | Threnetes ruckeri
Bandstaartbaardkolibrie | Ermitaño barbudo colibandeado | Balança-rabo-de-cauda-barrada
The Band-tailed Barbthroat is an understorey hermit with a dark throat, a rufous breast band and a boldly patterned tail: white at the base, with a broad black band and white tips. It lives in the humid lowlands west of the Andes and in northern Colombia. Like other hermits it flies a fixed route along scattered flowers.
Voice
A high, thin tseep in flight; the song is a short, high series of squeaky and scratchy notes.
Recording: Kent Livezey — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
10–11 cm, with a slightly decurved bill with a yellowish lower mandible. The upperparts are bronzy green. The face has a dark mask with a white stripe above and a white malar stripe below. The throat is blackish, with a cinnamon breast band below it; the belly is grey. The tail is rounded, with a white base, a broad black band and white tips; the central feathers are green. The sexes are similar.
Confusion species
Bronzy Hermit Glaucis aeneus is entirely rufous below, without a dark throat, and has a rufous tail. Pale-tailed Barbthroat Threnetes leucurus has pale outer tail feathers without a broad black band and lives east of the Andes. Hermits of the genus Phaethornis have a long, pointed tail with white central feathers.
Habitat
Understorey of humid forest, forest edges, secondary forest, heliconia thickets along streams and plantations with shade trees, from sea level to about 1000 m. It visits mainly flowers of heliconias and other understorey plants. The nest hangs from the underside of a leaf, often of a heliconia or palm.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia in the Pacific lowlands, the Caribbean lowlands in the north and the Magdalena valley. In Ecuador in the western lowlands and on the lower western slope of the Andes. Absent from Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area from Guatemala and Belize through Central America to north-western Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Wait at flowering heliconias in the understorey and along streams in humid forest in western Colombia and Ecuador. In flight look for the white at the base of the tail.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species also uses secondary forest and forest edges.
Scientific name
Threnetes ruckeri | (Bourcier, 1847)
Bourcier described the species in 1847 as Trochilus Ruckeri; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Threnetes was introduced in 1852 by Gould. The genus name comes from Greek thrēnētēs, 'mourner'. The specific name honours Sigismund Rucker (1815–1890), an English businessman, hummingbird specialist and art collector. The specimen the first description was based on came from (per the description).