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Glowing Puffleg | Eriocnemis vestita
Glanspluimbroekje | Calzadito reluciente | Calçudo-brilhante
The Glowing Puffleg is a small, dark green hummingbird of the upper edge of cloud forest and the transition to páramo. The male has a glittering golden-green rump and a violet-blue throat patch; like all pufflegs it has thick white downy tufts around the legs. Among the pufflegs of the northern Andes it is the most widespread species at the treeline.
Voice
A high, dry tsit, often repeated, and a rapid, thin twitter in chases.
Recording: Andrew Spencer — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
9–10 cm, with a short, straight black bill and a forked, blue-black tail. The male is dark green, with a glittering golden-green rump and uppertail coverts, a small violet-blue patch on the throat, glittering green underparts and violet-blue undertail coverts. The leg puffs are white. The female is green above, with a cinnamon throat with a small blue spot, and paler, green-spotted underparts; she too has white leg puffs.
Confusion species
Black-thighed Puffleg Eriocnemis derbyi has black leg puffs and no blue throat patch. Sapphire-vented Puffleg Eriocnemis luciani is larger, with a longer, more deeply forked tail, and lacks the violet-blue throat patch. Golden-breasted Puffleg Eriocnemis mosquera has a golden breast and a bronze-green tail. Metaltails such as Tyrian Metaltail Metallura tyrianthina have a rufous or coppery tail and no conspicuous leg puffs.
Habitat
High cloud forest and elfin forest at the treeline, forest edges, scrub in the transition to páramo and Polylepis groves, roughly between 2500 and 3800 m. It feeds at flowering shrubs, often low at the forest edge, and defends a flowering shrub against other hummingbirds. It also catches small insects in flight. The nest is a small cup of moss and plant down, low in a shrub.
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 on both slopes of the Andes and in the high areas between them. In Peru in the Andes of the north. Absent from Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in the Andes of western Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
At flowering shrubs along the edge of elfin forest just below the páramo, for example along high roads and trails. Males often sit on a fixed lookout next to their flowering shrub.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Its treeline habitat is locally affected by logging, fires and the expansion of pasture.
Scientific name
Eriocnemis vestita | (Lesson, 1839)
Lesson described the species in 1839 as Ornismya vestita; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Eriocnemis was introduced in 1849 by Reichenbach. The genus name combines Greek erion, 'wool', with knēmis, 'legging', after the downy feather tufts on the legs. The species name is Latin vestitus, 'clothed', probably after the feather tufts on the legs. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bogotá, Colombia.