All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies › Golden-collared Honeycreeper
Golden-collared Honeycreeper | Iridophanes pulcherrimus
Goudkraagsuikervogel | Mielero collarejo | Saí-de-colar-dourado
The Golden-collared Honeycreeper is a small tanager of Andean montane forest, named after the golden-yellow band across the male's hindneck. It forms its own genus, related to Green Honeycreeper and to the honeycreepers of the genus Cyanerpes. It lives in the canopy, usually alone or in pairs in mixed flocks with tanagers.
Voice
High, thin tsit calls; a song is rarely heard and poorly described.
Recording: Mitch Lysinger — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12 cm, with a fairly slender, slightly decurved black bill. The male has a black head, throat and upper back, with a golden-yellow to straw-coloured band across the hindneck. Rump and underparts are pale opalescent greenish-blue; wings and tail are black with blue edges. The female is olive-green with a faint yellowish nuchal band, blue-green edges to wings and tail and paler, yellowish-green underparts. Young males resemble the female.
Confusion species
The male Green Honeycreeper Chlorophanes spiza is larger, glossy blue-green with only a black mask, and has a yellow lower mandible. The female Blue Dacnis Dacnis cayana is green with a blue head and has a shorter, straight bill. Female Purple Honeycreeper Cyanerpes caeruleus is streaked below, has an ochre face and a longer, more strongly decurved bill.
Habitat
Canopy and edges of humid montane forest and cloud forest, also old secondary growth, mostly between 1000 and 1800 m, locally higher. It eats small fruits, searches leaves and twigs for insects and also visits flowers. Usually alone or in pairs in mixed flocks with tanagers. Little is known about the nest.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia on the east slope of the Eastern Andes, mainly in the south, and in the south-west on the Pacific slope in Nariño. In Ecuador along the whole east slope of the Andes and in the north also on the west slope. In Peru on the east slope of the Andes from the north to the south-east. Not known from Bolivia and absent from the Galápagos. The range lies almost entirely within the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On the east slope in Ecuador along mountain roads between about 1000 and 1700 m, for example near Sumaco and in the Cordillera de Guacamayos, where it moves through the canopy with mixed tanager flocks. In Peru along the Manu road.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Generally rather scarce and tied to a fairly narrow elevational belt; clearing of lower montane forest plays a role locally.
Scientific name
Iridophanes pulcherrimus | (Sclater, 1853)
Sclater described the species in 1853 as Dacnis pulcherrima; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Iridophanes was introduced in 1901 by Ridgway. The genus name combines Greek iris, 'rainbow', with -phanēs, 'showing'. The species name is Latin pulcherrimus, 'very pretty'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Colombia (Bogotá skin).