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Golden-bellied Starfrontlet | Coeligena bonapartei
Goudbuikincakolibrie | Inca ventridorado | Inca-de-barriga-dourada
The Golden-bellied Starfrontlet is an inca of the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia, in which the male grades from front to back from green to glittering gold and orange. It lives in cloud forest and at forest edges, also close to Bogotá. The related form of the Serranía de Perijá is now regarded as a separate species.
Voice
A dry, high tsit, often repeated; in chases a rapid series of high notes.
Recording: Mateo Hernandez (Colección de Sonidos Ambientales - Instituto Humboldt) — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
14 cm, with a long, straight, black bill. The male is green, with a glittering green forecrown and a small violet throat patch; back and rump grade to gold, and the underparts are glittering golden green, orange-gold on the belly. The tail is golden bronze, the wings dark with some cinnamon in the flight feathers. The female is green above, with a cinnamon throat and golden-green-spotted underparts.
Confusion species
Blue-throated Starfrontlet Coeligena helianthea lives in the same area, but the male is much darker, with a blue throat patch and a rosy-violet belly; the female has a rosy gloss on the belly. Perija Starfrontlet Coeligena consita is almost identical, but lives only in the Serranía de Perijá. Bronzy Inca Coeligena coeligena is uniform bronzy brown, without golden gloss.
Habitat
Humid montane forest, cloud forest, forest edges, scrub and gardens, mostly between about 1800 and 3200 m, locally lower. It visits long-tubed flowers in the lower and middle levels of the forest and takes small insects. It comes to feeders. The nest is a cup of moss in a sheltered spot.
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 Eastern Cordillera, mainly in Cundinamarca, Boyacá and Santander. Absent from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area the related form eos in the Andes of Venezuela is often included in this species.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the cloud forest around Bogotá, such as in Chicaque nature park, at flowering shrubs and feeders. In the morning watch for the golden gloss of the belly when a bird hovers at a flower in the sun.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Much of the montane forest in the Eastern Cordillera has been cleared, but the species also uses forest edges, secondary forest and gardens.
Scientific name
Coeligena bonapartei | (Boissonneau, 1840)
Boissonneau described the species in 1840 as Ornismia bonarpartei; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Coeligena was introduced in 1833 by Lesson. The genus name comes from Latin coeligenus, 'heaven-born' or 'celestial'. The species name honours Charles Lucien Bonaparte (1803–1857), a French ornithologist and nephew of Napoleon. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bogotá, Colombia.