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American Pygmy Kingfisher | Chloroceryle aenea
Groene dwergijsvogel | Martín pescador enano
The American Pygmy Kingfisher is the smallest kingfisher of the guide area, barely larger than a sparrow. It lives hidden along shady forest streams, pools and mangrove creeks in the humid lowlands from southern Mexico to Panama and is often only noticed when it darts away low over the water.
Voice
A soft, dry tik or chit, often repeated, and a soft buzzy chirping; less loud than the other kingfishers.
Recording: Johan Chaves — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13 cm, with a relatively large head without an obvious crest and a long, black bill. The upperparts are dark glossy green, with small pale spots on the wings. A narrow rufous collar runs round the neck; the throat and chin are pale yellow to pale rufous. The breast and flanks are deep rufous, the centre of the belly and the undertail coverts white. The female has a narrow dark green band across the rufous breast. Young birds are duller, with pale spots on the wing coverts.
Confusion species
Green-and-rufous Kingfisher Chloroceryle inda has a similar colour pattern but is almost twice as large and has entirely rufous underparts without a white belly. Green Kingfisher Chloroceryle americana is larger, has a white throat and belly and white outer tail feathers.
Habitat
Shady small streams and pools in humid lowland forest, swamp forest, flooded forest and the creeks and edges of mangroves, also forest ponds and ditches in secondary forest; mainly below 500 m. It perches low and still on a branch just above the water, often in dense vegetation, and catches small fish, tadpoles and aquatic insects. It nests in a short tunnel in a bank or in the earth of an upturned tree root.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Humid lowlands of southern Mexico, on the Gulf slope from southern Veracruz and on the Yucatán Peninsula, on the Pacific slope from Chiapas, through Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica to Panama; scarce or absent in the dry regions of the Pacific slope. Outside the guide area through northern and central South America to Bolivia and Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Along the canals of Tortuguero in Costa Rica, in the mangrove creeks of Sian Ka'an in Quintana Roo and at the forest streams along Pipeline Road (Camino del Oleoducto) in Panama. The chances are best from a slowly moving boat; a small rufous bird on a low branch in the shade is often this species.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Fairly common but inconspicuous in humid lowland forest; sensitive to the loss of forest along streams.
Scientific name
Chloroceryle aenea | (Pallas, 1764)
Pallas described the species in 1764 as Alcedo aenea; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Chloroceryle was introduced in 1848 by Kaup. Chloroceryle combines Greek khlōros 'green' with the genus Ceryle: 'green Ceryle', after the green upperparts. aenea is Latin for 'bronze', after the metallic sheen of the green upperparts. The specimen the first description was based on came from Suriname.