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Glossy Flowerpiercer | Diglossa lafresnayii
Glansberghoningkruiper | Pinchaflor satinado | Fura-flor-lustroso
The Glossy Flowerpiercer is a large, glossy black flowerpiercer of upper cloud forest and the treeline, from Colombia to northern Peru. A blue-grey shoulder patch is its only marking. Within its altitudinal zone it is often the commonest flowerpiercer and a regular member of mixed flocks.
Voice
The song is a long, fast, twittering and chirping series of high notes. The call is a sharp tsit.
Recording: Sue Riffe — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
14–15 cm, with a black, upturned bill with a distinct hooked tip. The plumage is entirely black with a bluish gloss, with a blue-grey patch on the lesser wing coverts that is not always visible at rest. The sexes are alike. Young birds are duller black, without gloss, with a less distinct shoulder patch.
Confusion species
Black Flowerpiercer Diglossa humeralis is smaller, dull black, with a smaller bill and a smaller or missing shoulder patch, and more often lives in open shrubbery. Chestnut-bellied Flowerpiercer Diglossa gloriosissima has a chestnut belly. The male White-sided Flowerpiercer Diglossa albilatera is smaller, with a white tuft on the flank. Masked Flowerpiercer Diglossa cyanea is blue, with a black mask and a red iris.
Habitat
Upper cloud forest, elfin forest, forest edges and shrubby páramo and jalca, roughly between 2500 and 3700 m. It lives alone or in pairs, often in mixed flocks, and searches flowering shrubs for nectar, which it steals by piercing flowers at the base; it also eats insects and berries.
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 all three Andean ranges. In Ecuador along both slopes of the Andes. In Peru only in the extreme north, north of the Marañón. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in extreme western Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
At the treeline and in shrubbery along roads through upper cloud forest, look for black birds searching flowers; when a wing is raised, the blue-grey shoulder patch shows.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Widespread and common in suitable habitat; it tolerates forest edges and shrubbery.
Scientific name
Diglossa lafresnayii | (Boissonneau, 1840)
Boissonneau described the species in 1840 as Uncirostrum La Fresnayii; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Diglossa was introduced in 1832 by Wagler. The genus name comes from Greek diglōssos, 'double-tongued' or 'speaking two languages'. The specific name honours Noël Frédéric Armand André, Baron de La Fresnaye (1783–1861), French ornithologist and collector. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bogotá, Colombia.