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Colorful Puffleg | Eriocnemis mirabilis
Witoorpluimbroekje | Calzadito admirable | Calçudo-colorido
The Colorful Puffleg is a small puffleg, described only in 1967, from the Pacific slope of the Western Andes in Colombia. The male is multicoloured, with glittering green, blue and coppery red on the underparts. Its known range is very small.
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Voice
A high, thin tsit; otherwise little described.
No recording with a suitable Creative Commons licence is available for this species yet.
Identification
8–9 cm, with a short, straight black bill and a slightly forked, bronze-green tail. The male is green above, with a glittering green forehead and a glittering green throat and breast; the belly has a blue gloss and the undertail coverts are coppery red. The leg puffs are white. The female is green above and white below, with green and reddish spots, reddish undertail coverts and a small white spot behind the eye.
Confusion species
Emerald-bellied Puffleg Eriocnemis aline has a white patch on the breast and green undertail coverts, and lacks the blue and coppery red on the underparts. Greenish Puffleg Haplophaedia aureliae is duller green, without glittering underparts, and has smaller, pale leg puffs. White-booted Racket-tail Ocreatus underwoodii has, in the male, long tail feathers with rackets.
Habitat
Humid cloud forest rich in moss and epiphytes on the Pacific slope, roughly between 2200 and 2600 m. It feeds mainly in the lower and middle strata of the forest and at forest edges, at flowering shrubs and epiphytes. The nest has not been described.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia known only from a few sites on the Pacific slope of the Western Andes in Cauca, mainly Munchique National Park, and further south in Nariño. Absent from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Does not occur outside the guide area.
How and when to look
At flowering shrubs and epiphytes in the cloud forest of Munchique and its surroundings, often low in the forest. The area can only be visited with a local guide and after checking on safety.
Conservation status
Endangered. Its known range is very small and is affected by clearance for farming, the cultivation of illicit crops and mining.
Scientific name
Eriocnemis mirabilis | Meyer de Schauensee, 1967
Meyer de Schauensee described the species in 1967 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Eriocnemis was introduced in 1849 by Reichenbach. The genus name combines Greek erion, 'wool', with knēmis, 'legging', after the downy feather tufts on the legs. The species name is Latin mirabilis, 'wonderful, remarkable'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Charguayaco, Cauca, Colombia.