All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies › Emerald Tanager
Emerald Tanager | Tangara florida
Smaragdtangare | Tangara esmeralda | Saíra-esmeralda
The Emerald Tanager is a small, bright green tanager with a black ear patch, in the guide area restricted to the Chocó foothills of western Colombia and north-western Ecuador. The male has a yellow crown. It lives in the canopy of very wet forest and joins mixed flocks.
Voice
High, thin tsit calls and short, dry notes, often in mixed flocks; any song is inconspicuous.
Recording: Jonas Nilsson — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
12–13 cm, with a short, black bill. The male is bright emerald green, with a yellow crown and hindneck, a black forehead and lores and a prominent black, square patch on the ear coverts. The back is green with black streaks. The centre of the belly is yellow. Wings and tail are black with green edges. The female resembles the male but has a green crown with at most some yellow. Juveniles are duller.
Confusion species
Blue-whiskered Tanager Tangara johannae has a black face with a pale blue moustachial stripe, no yellow crown and no separate ear patch, and usually lives lower. Silver-throated Tanager Tangara icterocephala is yellow with a silvery-white throat. Bay-headed Tanager Tangara gyrola has a rufous-brown head and no black ear patch.
Habitat
Canopy and edges of very wet foothill forest and lower montane rainforest on the Pacific slope, also tall secondary forest, roughly between 300 and 1300 m. It searches branches covered in moss and epiphytes for insects and eats small fruits, often in mixed flocks with other tanagers. Little is known about the nest in the guide area.
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 Pacific slope of the Western Andes, from Chocó to Nariño. In Ecuador in the north-west, in Esmeraldas, Imbabura and north-western Pichincha. Absent from Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in Costa Rica and Panama.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Follow mixed flocks along forest edges and roads in the wet foothills of north-western Ecuador, for example at the Río Silanche reserve and around Mashpi, or along the road to Junín in Colombia (Nariño).
Conservation status
Least Concern. In the guide area restricted to the wet Chocó foothills, where forest is being cleared locally.
Scientific name
Tangara florida | (Sclater & Salvin, 1869)
Sclater & Salvin described the species in 1869 as Calliste florida; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Tangara was introduced in 1760 by Brisson. The genus name comes from the extinct Tupi language, in which tangara means 'dancer'. The specific name comes from Latin floridus, 'flowery' or 'brightly coloured'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Costa Rica.