All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies › Golden-crowned Tanager
Golden-crowned Tanager | Iridosornis rufivertex
Goudkruintangare | Tangara coronidorada | Saíra-de-coroa-dourada
The Golden-crowned Tanager is a dark blue tanager of the highest montane forest and the tree line in the northern Andes, with a black head and a golden-yellow patch on the crown. Pairs and small groups keep to dense undergrowth and bamboo and often join mixed flocks.
Voice
Gives high, thin tseet notes, often in mixed flocks; a song is seldom heard and consists of a short series of high, thin notes.
Recording: Lelis Navarrete — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
16 cm, with a short, stout bill. The plumage is deep purplish blue; wings and tail are blackish with blue edges. Head, throat and foreneck are black, with a golden-yellow to orange-yellow patch in the centre of the crown. The undertail coverts are chestnut in most forms; in birds from the Western Andes of Colombia they are blue. The sexes are alike. Juveniles are duller and greyer, with a smaller or absent crown patch.
Confusion species
Purplish-mantled Tanager Iridosornis porphyrocephalus lives lower, in cloud forest on the western slope, and has a yellow throat and no yellow crown. Yellow-throated Tanager Iridosornis analis of the eastern slope also has a yellow throat. Golden-collared Tanager Iridosornis jelskii occurs only further south in Peru and has a yellow band across the hindcrown instead of a crown patch. Blue-and-black Tanager Tangara vassorii is smaller and glossier blue, without a black throat.
Habitat
Humid upper montane forest, elfin forest and shrubbery at the tree line, especially with much Chusquea bamboo, from about 2500 to 3600 m, locally up to the edge of the páramo. It searches low to mid-height in the shrubbery for insects and also eats berries. 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 in the Central and Eastern Andes and locally in the Western Andes. In Ecuador on both slopes of the Andes. In Peru only in the far north, in Piura and Cajamarca north of the Marañón. Does not occur in Bolivia or on the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in the Andes of western Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search bamboo and elfin forest at the tree line, for example in the mountains around Bogotá and in Ecuador along the Papallacta Pass and at Yanacocha; in mixed flocks low in the shrubbery, look for a dark bird with a yellow crown patch.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Fairly common in suitable forest at the tree line; sensitive to deforestation and fires along the upper forest edge.
Scientific name
Iridosornis rufivertex | (de Lafresnaye, 1842)
De Lafresnaye described the species in 1842 as Arremon rufi-vertex; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Iridosornis was introduced in 1844 by Lesson. The genus name comes from Greek iris, 'rainbow', and ornis, 'bird', thus 'rainbow bird'. The species name comes from Latin rufus, 'rufous', and vertex, 'crown'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bogotá region, Colombia.