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Garnet-throated Hummingbird | Lamprolaima rhami
Smukkolibrie | Colibrí ala castaña
The Garnet-throated Hummingbird is a medium-sized, dark hummingbird of the cloud forests of southern Mexico and northern Central America. Both sexes have rufous wings, which show well in flight. The male has a garnet-red throat and a violet-blue breast.
Voice
A sharp, dry chik, and in chases a high, rattling twitter.
Recording: Edgardo Orozco Díaz — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12 cm, with a straight black bill. The upperparts are dark green, with a white spot behind the eye; the flight feathers are rufous. The male has a glittering garnet-red throat, a violet-blue breast patch, a dark, almost black belly and a dark purple tail. The female has grey underparts, often with a few red feathers on the throat, and a dark tail with grey tips.
Confusion species
Amethyst-throated Mountaingem Lampornis amethystinus has a white stripe behind the eye, a dark facial mask and no rufous in the wings. Rufous Sabrewing Pampa rufa has cinnamon underparts and a curved bill. Rivoli's Hummingbird Eugenes fulgens is larger, with a longer bill, and the male has a purple crown and a green throat.
Habitat
Cloud forest, humid pine-oak forest and forest edges in the mountains, at about 1200 to 3000 m, most often between 1800 and 2800 m. It feeds mainly in the middle strata and the canopy at flowering epiphytes and shrubs, and catches small insects. Outside the breeding season some birds move to lower elevations.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Endemic to the guide area. In Mexico in the mountains of Guerrero, Oaxaca, central Veracruz and Chiapas; further in the highlands of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the El Triunfo biosphere reserve in Chiapas and in the cloud forests of the Sierra de las Minas in Guatemala; in Honduras in La Tigra National Park. Mainly at flowering epiphytes along forest edges.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Locally fairly common, but patchily distributed because of its dependence on cloud forest. Deforestation in the mountains affects the species locally.
Scientific name
Lamprolaima rhami | (Lesson, 1839)
Lesson described the species in 1839 as Ornismya Rhami; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Lamprolaima was introduced in 1854 by Reichenbach. Lamprolaima is Greek, from lampros 'brilliant' and laimos 'throat', after the glittering throat. rhami honours Henri-Casimir de Rham (1785–1873), a Swiss diplomat, businessman and naturalist in the United States. The specimen the first description was based on came from Mexico.