All species › Swifts › Hummingbirds › Golden-breasted Puffleg
Golden-breasted Puffleg | Eriocnemis mosquera
Goudbuikpluimbroekje | Calzadito de Mosquera | Calçudo-de-peito-dourado
The Golden-breasted Puffleg is a large, bronze-green puffleg with a glittering golden breast and a long, forked tail. It lives at forest edges and in scrub at the upper edge of cloud forest in Colombia and northern Ecuador. The scientific name honours the Colombian statesman Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera.
Voice
A high, dry tsit and a rapid twitter in chases.
Recording: Andrew Spencer — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12 cm, with a short, straight black bill and a long, forked, bronze-green tail. The male is bronze-green above, with a glittering golden to coppery breast that becomes greener towards the belly. The undertail coverts are greyish to dull white and the leg puffs white. The female resembles the male but is duller, with less gloss on the breast.
Confusion species
Sapphire-vented Puffleg Eriocnemis luciani has a steel-blue tail, violet-blue undertail coverts and no golden breast. Glowing Puffleg Eriocnemis vestita is smaller, with a blue-black tail, a violet-blue throat patch and violet-blue undertail coverts. Coppery-bellied Puffleg Eriocnemis cupreoventris of the Eastern Andes has the copper on the belly and violet-blue undertail coverts.
Habitat
Forest edges, scrub and thickets at the upper edge of cloud forest and in the transition to páramo, also in rough, semi-open country with copses, roughly between 2400 and 3600 m. It feeds at flowering shrubs, often low to mid-height, and defends clusters of flowers. It also catches small insects. The nest is a cup of moss and plant down 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 the Western and Central Andes and in the Andes of the south of the country. In Ecuador in the Andes of the north. Absent from Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
At flowering shrubs along forest edges and trails at the upper edge of cloud forest, for example in Nariño and Carchi. Against the light the long, bronze-green forked tail is the most obvious feature.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species also uses scrub and forest edges, but its treeline habitat is locally affected by logging and fires.
Scientific name
Eriocnemis mosquera | (Delattre & Bourcier, 1846)
Delattre & Bourcier described the species in 1846 as Trochilus Mosquera; 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 honours Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera (1798–1878), a general and later president of New Granada, and a patron of natural history. The specimen the first description was based on came from Pasto, Nariño, Colombia.