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Hispaniolan Trogon | Priotelus roseigaster
Hispaniolatrogon | Trogón de La Española
The Hispaniolan Trogon is found only on Hispaniola, where it is mainly a bird of montane forest. In the Dominican Republic it is called papagayo, after the green and red of its plumage. Like the related Cuban Trogon it sits upright and motionless for long spells in the middle storey, often in pairs, and is mostly given away by its call.
Voice
A repeated cooing toca-loro or coc-ca-rao, reminiscent of a crowing cockerel, the second note longer and trailing. Also a low rattle. The call carries far and is ventriloquial. It calls mainly in the morning during the breeding season.
Recording: Johan Chaves — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
27–30 cm, with a long, graduated tail. Head, back and upperwing coverts are metallic green with a blue or bronze sheen. Throat and breast are grey, the belly bright red. The short, thick bill is yellow and the eye orange. In the male the wing coverts and secondaries carry narrow white bars; the upper side of the tail is blue-green, the underside dark with broad white feather tips. The female resembles the male but lacks the white bars on the wing and has a paler red belly.
Confusion species
No other trogon occurs on Hispaniola, and the combination of green upperparts, grey breast and red belly is unique there. Its closest relative, Cuban Trogon Priotelus temnurus, lives only in Cuba and has a white throat and breast and a blue crown. Hispaniolan Amazon Amazona ventralis is a green parrot with a white forehead, hooked bill and short tail.
Habitat
Moist montane forest, cloud forest and pine forest, locally also semi-evergreen broadleaf forest and degraded forest; mainly from about 500 to 3000 m, with some movement to lower elevations outside the breeding season, and less often in lowland forest and mangroves. It eats mainly insects, as well as fruit and small lizards such as anoles, taken from a leaf or twig in a short sally. It breeds from March to July in a tree cavity, often an old Hispaniolan Woodpecker hole.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Only on Hispaniola. In the Dominican Republic in the Cordillera Central, the Cordillera Septentrional, the Sierra de Neiba and the Sierra de Bahoruco. In Haiti deforestation has largely confined it to the Massif de la Hotte and the Massif de la Selle. It does not occur outside Hispaniola.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the Dominican Republic best in the Sierra de Bahoruco and the Cordillera Central, in Haiti around Pic Macaya. In the early morning the call is the quickest lead; the bird then often sits still at mid-height and is noticed only when it makes a short flight or shows the red belly.
Conservation status
Not threatened on the current assessment, but numbers are falling through logging and fragmentation of the forest. In the Dominican Republic it is still fairly common in the larger montane forests; in Haiti it is scarce and limited to the last large forest areas.
Scientific name
Priotelus roseigaster | (Vieillot, 1817)
Vieillot described the species in 1817 as Trogon roseigaster; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Priotelus was introduced in 1840 by Gray. Priotelus is Greek, from priōn 'saw' and telos 'completion'; the 'saw' probably refers to the serrated tips of the tail feathers, the intent of the second part is unclear. roseigaster is Latin-Greek, from roseus 'rosy' and gaster 'belly', after the rose-red belly. The specimen the first description was based on came from Santo Domingo (Hispaniola); 'Mexico' was an error.