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Gartered Trogon | Trogon caligatus
Goulds trogon | Trogón violáceo norteño | Surucuá-violáceo-do-norte
The Gartered Trogon is a small, yellow-bellied trogon of forest edges, secondary forest and semi-open wooded country west of the Andes. It was formerly treated as one species together with Guianan Trogon Trogon violaceus and Amazonian Trogon Trogon ramonianus. Of these three it is the only one west of the Andes. The Dutch name honours the British ornithologist John Gould.
Voice
A fast, even series of high, clear choo notes, often ten to twenty in a row, higher and faster than in the larger trogons. Also a soft cackle.
Recording: Manuel Grosselet — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
23–25 cm. The male has a violet-blue head and breast, a black face and throat, a yellow eye-ring, a green back and a yellow belly, with a narrow, often indistinct white band between breast and belly. The bill is bluish grey. The undertail is finely barred black and white with broad white tips. The female is grey on the head, breast and back, with a yellow belly, a broken white eye-ring and a black-and-white barred undertail.
Confusion species
White-tailed Trogon Trogon chionurus is larger and, in the male, has a pale blue eye-ring and an almost entirely white undertail. Collared Trogon Trogon collaris has a red belly and, in the male, a green head. Amazonian Trogon Trogon ramonianus is very similar, but lives only east of the Andes.
Habitat
Humid and semi-humid lowland and hill forest, also drier woodland, especially forest edges, secondary forest, gallery forest, shade coffee and cacao and semi-open country with trees, up to about 1500 m. It perches upright in the middle and upper storeys and eats fruit and insects. It often excavates its nest in a wasp nest in a tree, sometimes in a termite nest or rotten wood.
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 lowlands and hills west of the Eastern Andes: the Caribbean lowlands, the Magdalena and Cauca valleys and the Pacific lowlands. In Ecuador in the lowlands and hills west of the Andes. In Peru only in the far north-west, in Tumbes. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area from eastern Mexico through Central America to Panama and in western Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
At forest edges, along roads and in plantations with shade trees in the lowlands of western Ecuador and Colombia. It often perches in the open at forest edges. The fast series of choo notes leads the way.
Conservation status
Not Evaluated as a separate species. It tolerates disturbance well and also occurs in secondary forest, plantations and semi-open country with trees.
Scientific name
Trogon caligatus | Gould, 1838
Gould described the species in 1838 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Trogon was introduced in 1760 by Brisson. The genus name comes from Greek trōgōn, 'nibbling', from trōgō, 'to gnaw'; trogons gnaw out their nest holes in rotten wood. Caligatus is Latin for 'booted', from caliga, a soldier's boot; it refers to the barred thighs ('garters'). The specimen the first description was based on came from Magdalena Valley, Colombia.