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White-tipped Quetzal | Pharomachrus fulgidus
Witpuntquetzal | Quetzal fúlgido | Quetzal-de-ponta-branca
The White-tipped Quetzal is the quetzal of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia and of the mountains of northern Venezuela. The male is glossy green with a crimson belly and is the only quetzal of the Andean region with white tips to the outer tail feathers. In the guide area it occurs only in the Santa Marta mountains.
Voice
The song is a repeated series of clear whistled notes, often in pairs. The call is a dry, cackling chatter.
Recording: Niels Krabbe — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
33 cm. The male is glossy metallic green on the upperparts and breast, with a golden-green sheen on the head and a crimson belly and undertail coverts. The bill is yellow. The tail is black from below, with broad white tips to the outer feathers. The female is duller, with a browner head and breast, less red on the belly, a dark bill and white bars and tips on the outer tail feathers.
Confusion species
Golden-headed Quetzal Pharomachrus auriceps is very similar, but the male has an all-black tail from below; that species does not occur in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Masked Trogon Trogon personatus, which also lives in the Santa Marta mountains, is smaller, with a black face, a white breast band in the male and a finely barred undertail.
Habitat
Humid montane forest and cloud forest, also forest edges, old secondary forest and clearings with fruiting trees, roughly between 900 and 2700 m. It eats mainly fruit, plucked from branches while hovering, and also insects. It nests in a cavity in a rotten tree trunk.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia only in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, where a separate subspecies lives. Absent from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in the coastal cordillera of northern Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Along the mountain road from Minca to San Lorenzo in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, including around the El Dorado reserve, at fruiting trees on forest edges. The song is heard mainly in the early morning.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Its small range makes the species dependent on the protection of montane forest on the slopes of the Santa Marta.
Scientific name
Pharomachrus fulgidus | (Gould, 1838)
Gould described the species in 1838 as Trogon fulgidus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Pharomachrus was introduced in 1832 by De la Llave. The genus name comes from Greek pharos, 'mantle', and makros, 'long', after the long covert feathers. Latin fulgidus means 'shining, glittering', after the metallic plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from northern Venezuela.