All species › Swifts › Hummingbirds › Esmeraldas Woodstar
Esmeraldas Woodstar | Chaetocercus berlepschi
Esmeraldasboself | Estrellita esmeraldeña | Estrelinha-de-esmeraldas
The Esmeraldas Woodstar is a small hummingbird of western Ecuador that occurs only in the guide area. It lives in semi-humid forest in the coastal hills and lowlands and is present mainly in the first months of the year, when it breeds. The male has a purple throat and a white breast band.
Voice
Usually silent. Soft, dry tsip notes; the wings hum in flight.
No recording with a suitable Creative Commons licence is available for this species yet.
Identification
6–7 cm, with a short, straight black bill. The male is green above, with a glittering amethyst-purple throat, a white spot behind the eye and a broad white band across the breast. The flanks are green, with a white patch on the side of the rump, and the short tail is forked. The female is green above and mostly whitish below, with buff flanks, a dark ear patch and a rufous tail with a black band.
Confusion species
The male Little Woodstar Chaetocercus bombus has a rose-purple throat and a buff breast band; the female is warm buff below. Short-tailed Woodstar Myrmia micrura has an even shorter tail and, in the male, a violet throat, and lives in drier scrub. Purple-collared Woodstar Myrtis fanny has a longer, slightly decurved bill; the male has a blue-green throat.
Habitat
Semi-humid and humid forest, forest edges, ravines with dense scrub and old second growth in the coastal hills and lowlands, from sea level to about 500 m. It takes nectar at small flowers of shrubs and trees and catches small insects. It breeds in the wet season; the nest is a small cup of plant down.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Only in western Ecuador, in the provinces of Esmeraldas, Manabí and Santa Elena, at a few scattered sites. Absent from Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Does not occur outside the guide area. Where the birds spend the non-breeding season is largely unknown.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the coastal hills of Manabí and Santa Elena, for example in the Ayampe valley, from December to March, at flowering shrubs and trees along forest edges and in ravines.
Conservation status
Vulnerable. The species has a very small, fragmented range and a small population. Forest in western Ecuador has largely been cleared or converted to farmland; part of the habitat is protected in reserves.
Scientific name
Chaetocercus berlepschi | Simon, 1889
Simon described the species in 1889 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Chaetocercus was introduced in 1855 by Gray. The genus name combines Greek khaitē, 'hair', with kerkos, 'tail'. The species name honours Hans von Berlepsch (1850–1915), a German ornithologist with a large collection of South American birds. The specimen the first description was based on came from Ecuador.