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Coppery-chested Jacamar | Galbula pastazae
Koperborstglansvogel | Jacamará pechicobrizo | Ariramba-de-peito-acobreado
The Coppery-chested Jacamar is the jacamar of the forests on the eastern Andean foothills in the north of the guide area. It is larger and more heavily built than the related lowland jacamars and has a conspicuous orange eye-ring. Its entire range lies within the guide area, from southern Colombia to the far north of Peru.
Voice
A series of high, rising whistles, wee-wee-wee, running into a long, accelerating trill, slightly fuller than in the lowland species; also single sharp calls.
Recording: Juan Freile — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
22–24 cm, with a long, straight, black bill and a long, graduated tail. Around the eye a bare orange to yellow-orange ring. The upperparts are glossy metallic green, the crown with a blue-green sheen. The throat and breast are green with a coppery to golden-bronze sheen; the belly is rufous. The female has a rufous chin and throat. Juveniles are duller.
Confusion species
White-chinned Jacamar Galbula tombacea lives in the lowlands and lowest foothills, has a white chin and lacks the orange eye-ring. Bluish-fronted Jacamar Galbula cyanescens lives further south, south of the Marañón, and also lacks an eye-ring. Yellow-billed Jacamar Galbula albirostris has a yellow bill and lives in the lowlands.
Habitat
Humid foothill forest and lower montane forest, especially along stream valleys, clearings, forest edges and roads, roughly between 700 and 1600 m, locally lower or higher. It perches on low to middle branches in the shade and sallies for large flying insects. It nests in a self-dug tunnel in an earth bank, often in a roadcut.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia on the eastern slope of the Andes in the south, in Nariño, Putumayo and Caquetá. In Ecuador along almost the whole eastern slope. In Peru only a few records from the far north, near the border with Ecuador. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Along roads and trails through foothill forest on the eastern slope in Ecuador, for example around Volcán Sumaco and in the valleys of the Napo and the Upano. The bird often sits still in the shade near a clearing; the rising whistled series gives it away.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The range is narrow and restricted to a belt of foothill forest that is being cleared locally for farming and roads.
Scientific name
Galbula pastazae | Taczanowski & Berlepsch, 1885
Taczanowski & Berlepsch described the species in 1885 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Galbula was introduced in 1760 by Brisson. The genus name comes from Latin galbula, the name for a small yellow bird. The species name refers to the Río Pastaza in Ecuador, not necessarily the type locality. The specimen the first description was based on came from Mapoto and Machay, Ecuador.