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Copper-rumped Hummingbird | Saucerottia tobaci
Koperrugamazilia | Amazilia de Tobago
The Copper-rumped Hummingbird is the commonest hummingbird on Tobago and also very numerous in Trinidad. It is territorial and defends flowering shrubs and feeders, even against larger hummingbirds. Trinidad and Tobago each have their own subspecies; the scientific name refers to Tobago.
Voice
The song is a repeated phrase of three buzzy or squeaky, well-spaced notes. Short, hard calls are given when chasing other birds.
Recording: Rosa Elena Albornoz @rosaelena_naturaleza — CC0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
9–11 cm, with a straight black bill. The male has bronze-green upperparts, turning coppery to purplish-red on the rump and uppertail coverts. The underparts are glittering golden-green, the undertail coverts rufous-brown and the tail purplish-black. The female resembles the male but is less intensely coloured above and has some white on the chin and upper throat. Juveniles show greyish-brown on throat and belly.
Confusion species
White-chested Emerald Chrysuronia brevirostris has white underparts. Blue-chinned Sapphire Chlorestes notata has a blue chin, a blue forked tail and a reddish lower mandible. Blue-tailed Emerald Chlorostilbon mellisugus is smaller, with a steel-blue tail and no coppery rump. The combination of green underparts, rufous undertail coverts and coppery rump is distinctive.
Habitat
Forest edges, secondary forest, open woodland, coastal scrub, plantations, gardens and parks, from sea level into the hills. Less frequent in dense forest interior than at edges and in open country. It visits a wide range of flowers and feeders.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Common resident in Trinidad and Tobago. Elsewhere in northern and central Venezuela.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On Tobago at virtually every feeder and flowering hedge, including hotel gardens; in Trinidad in gardens and at the feeders of the Asa Wright Nature Centre. A bird chasing other hummingbirds off a feeder is often this species; the coppery rump shows best as the bird flies away.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species is numerous and benefits from gardens, plantations and open, man-made habitats.
Scientific name
Saucerottia tobaci | (Gmelin, 1788)
Gmelin described the species in 1788 as Trochilus Tobaci; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Saucerottia was introduced in 1850 by Bonaparte. Saucerottia honours the French physician and ornithologist Antoine Constant Saucerotte; the name derives from the epithet saucerottei (1846). tobaci refers to the island of Tobago, where the species was described. The specimen the first description was based on came from Tobago.