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Shining-green Hummingbird | Chrysuronia goudoti
Goudots kolibrie | Colibrí de Goudot | Beija-flor-verde-brilhante
The Shining-green Hummingbird is a small, glossy green hummingbird of northern Colombia and the Lake Maracaibo basin. The male has a deeply forked, blue-black tail and a pink lower mandible. The species lives in semi-open, often dry country and also occurs in man-made landscapes.
Voice
The song is probably a short, thin, lisping rattle, repeated ten to twelve times. Also dry chip calls and a high, descending trill.
Recording: Jerome Fischer — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
9 cm, with a fairly straight bill: the upper mandible is black, the lower mandible mostly pink with a dark tip. The male is green above and shining bluish green below, with a whitish belly and green undertail coverts edged white. The tail is deeply forked, with bronzy-black central and blue-black outer feathers. The female has green-spotted breast sides, an almost pure white belly and a less deeply forked, bronzy-green tail. Young birds are duller green, with a greyish-white belly.
Confusion species
Sapphire-throated Hummingbird Chrysuronia coeruleogularis has a violet-blue throat in the male and lives mainly in mangroves and coastal scrub. Steely-vented Hummingbird Saucerottia saucerottei has a steel-blue, barely forked tail and dark undertail coverts. Blue-tailed Emerald Chlorostilbon mellisugus is smaller, with a shorter, all-black bill. Red-billed Emerald Chlorostilbon gibsoni is smaller, with a red bill with a black tip; the female has grey underparts and a white stripe behind the eye.
Habitat
Brushy open country with scattered trees, dry to humid scrub, gallery forest edges, coffee plantations and gardens, from sea level to about 1000 m, locally to 1600 m. It takes nectar from the flowers of shrubs and trees and catches small insects. The nest is a small cup of plant fibres on a branch or twig.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Only in Colombia: in the Caribbean lowlands of the north, from northern Chocó east to Bolívar and Cesar, in the middle and upper Magdalena valley and on the Colombian side of the Maracaibo basin. Absent from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in north-western Venezuela, around Lake Maracaibo.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Look at flowering shrubs and trees in brushy pasture and along forest edges in the northern lowlands and the Magdalena valley, for example in Huila and Tolima. In the male, note the deeply forked tail and the pink lower mandible.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species tolerates semi-open and man-made habitats such as pasture, plantations and gardens.
Scientific name
Chrysuronia goudoti | (Bourcier, 1843)
Bourcier described the species in 1843 as Trochilus Goudoti; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Chrysuronia was introduced in 1850 by Bonaparte. The genus name is a blend of two old species names of the Golden-tailed Sapphire: chrysura (Greek khrusos, 'gold', and oura, 'tail') and oenone. The species name honours Justin Goudot (1802–c. 1850), a French naturalist and collector who worked for many years in New Granada (Colombia). The specimen the first description was based on came from Ibagué, Tolima, Colombia.