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Golden-winged Manakin | Masius chrysopterus
Goudvleugelmanakin | Saltarín alidorado | Dançarino-de-asa-dourada
The Golden-winged Manakin is a small black manakin of the humid mountain slopes of the northern Andes. The male has a yellow crown with forward-pointing feathers over the bill and yellow inner webs to the flight feathers, visible only in flight. Males display on fallen, mossy logs on the forest floor.
Voice
A low, croaking nurrt, reminiscent of a frog, and a high, thin tseeu. During display short buzzing wing sounds.
Recording: Johan Chaves — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
10–11 cm, compact, with a short tail. The male is velvety black, with a glossy yellow forecrown whose feathers project forwards over the bill as a small tuft; birds from the south of the range have a rufous to orange border to the rear crown. There is a small yellow patch on the throat. The inner webs of the flight feathers are yellow and show as a yellow patch in the wing in flight. The female is olive-green, with a yellowish throat and a paler, yellowish-green centre to the belly. The legs are purplish.
Confusion species
Female Club-winged Manakin Machaeropterus deliciosus has cinnamon tones on the face and whitish edges to the secondaries. Females of Blue-rumped Manakin Lepidothrix isidorei and Blue-capped Manakin Lepidothrix coronata are brighter green and lack the yellow throat. Males of other black manakins, such as Jet Manakin Chloropipo unicolor, lack a yellow crown or throat.
Habitat
Humid montane and foothill forest, especially in ravines and along streams with abundant moss, at roughly 600 to 2000 m, locally higher. It lives in the understorey and eats small fruits and insects. The male displays on a fallen log: he flies onto it, bows and shows the yellow crown.
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 cordilleras and on the Pacific slope. In Ecuador on the western and eastern slopes of the Andes. In Peru in the north, on the eastern slope south to about Huánuco. 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
In humid foothill forest of western Ecuador, such as around Mindo and Milpe, along trails through ravines with fallen logs. The low croak gives away displaying males; wait quietly near a mossy log.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species is locally fairly common, but depends on undisturbed forest understorey and disappears where montane forest is cleared.
Scientific name
Masius chrysopterus | (de Lafresnaye, 1843)
De Lafresnaye described the species in 1843 as Pipra chrysoptera; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Masius was introduced in 1850 by Bonaparte. The genus name Masius (Bonaparte, 1850) honours Luigi Masi (1814–?1872), Italian republican, Bonaparte's secretary and tutor to his children. The species name comes from Greek khrusos, 'gold', and pteron, 'wing': 'golden-winged'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bogotá, Colombia.