All species › Passerines › Tanagers and allies › Opal-rumped Tanager
Opal-rumped Tanager | Tangara velia
Opaalstuittangare | Tangara lomiopalina | Saíra-diamante
The Opal-rumped Tanager is a canopy tanager of Amazonian forest, deep ultramarine blue with a black back, a pale, opalescent rump and a chestnut lower belly. It travels in pairs or small groups with mixed flocks of tanagers and dacnises. The rump is best seen in flight and from above.
Voice
High, thin tsit calls and sharp, dry chip notes, especially in flight.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm. The forehead, face, throat and breast are deep purplish ultramarine, the crown slightly paler blue. The back and mantle are black, the rump pale silvery straw-coloured with an opalescent sheen. The wings and tail are black with blue edges. The lower belly and undertail coverts are chestnut. The bill is black. The sexes are alike; juveniles are duller.
Confusion species
Opal-crowned Tanager Tangara callophrys has an opalescent band across the forehead and eyebrow and no chestnut on the belly. Turquoise Tanager Tangara mexicana has a pale yellow belly. Paradise Tanager Tangara chilensis has a green head and a red rump.
Habitat
Canopy and edges of humid lowland forest in terra firme and várzea, also foothill forest and tall secondary forest, mostly below 1000 m. It eats small fruits and searches thin twigs and leaves for insects, usually high in the canopy.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia east of the Andes in Amazonia; in Ecuador and Peru in the lowlands and foothills east of the Andes; in Bolivia in the north of the lowlands. Absent from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in southern Venezuela, the Guianas and Amazonian Brazil; the Atlantic Forest form of eastern Brazil is now often treated as a separate species.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
From canopy towers and walkways at lodges in Amazonian Ecuador and Peru, with mixed tanager flocks. In flying birds, look for the pale rump.
Conservation status
Not Evaluated in this species limit. Widespread in large tracts of forest and not uncommon there, but locally affected by deforestation.
Scientific name
Tangara velia | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Motacilla Velia; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Tangara was introduced in 1760 by Brisson. The genus name comes from the extinct Tupi language, in which tangara means 'dancer'. Linnaeus adopted the name velia, an older name (Holyoake, 1639) for an unknown small bird. It goes back to Greek elea, a small marsh bird mentioned by Aristotle, perhaps some kind of warbler. The specimen the first description was based on came from Suriname.