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Graceful Black-throated Trogon | Trogon tenellus
Noordelijke zwartkeeltrogon | Trogón cabeciverde
The Graceful Black-throated Trogon is a small, yellow-bellied trogon of the lower and middle levels of humid lowland forest, from northern Honduras to north-western Colombia. It was formerly treated as a subspecies of the Black-throated Trogon Trogon rufus of South America. The female is the only trogon of the guide area with a brown head and back and a yellow belly.
Voice
A slow series of usually two to four clear, somewhat plaintive whistles, cuu cuu cuu, with short pauses. Also a soft rattling chatter.
Recording: frogman44 — CC BY-NC 4.0 · converted to mono · iNaturalist
Identification
23–25 cm. The male has a metallic green head, breast and back, a black face and throat, a bright yellow belly and a greenish-yellow bill. The underside of the tail is finely barred black and white with broad white tips. The female is warm brown on the head, breast and back, with a yellow belly, a white crescent in front of and behind the eye and also a barred undertail.
Confusion species
Male Gartered Trogon Trogon caligatus has a violet-blue head and breast; the female is grey rather than brown. White-tailed Trogon Trogon chionurus (Panama) is larger and the male has a dark blue head and breast and an almost entirely white undertail. Female Collared Trogon Trogon collaris is also brown, but has a red belly and a white breast band.
Habitat
Humid lowland and foothill forest up to about 1100 m, mainly tall, shady forest; less in secondary forest. It perches still and upright in the lower and middle levels, lower than most other trogons, and eats insects and fruit, snatched in a short flight. It excavates its nest in rotting wood or a termite nest.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Caribbean slope of northern and eastern Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica; in Costa Rica also on the Pacific side in the centre and south-west. In Panama on both slopes east to Darién. Absent from the dry Pacific lowlands of Nicaragua and north-western Costa Rica and further north in the guide area. Outside the guide area in north-western Colombia.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Common along Pipeline Road (Camino del Oleoducto) in Soberanía in Panama, and at La Selva and in Corcovado in Costa Rica. It often perches low and still inside the forest and is therefore usually noticed only when it calls.
Conservation status
Not threatened, based on the assessment of the Black-throated Trogon in the former, broad sense. Sensitive to clearance of lowland forest, as it occurs little in secondary forest.
Scientific name
Trogon tenellus | Cabanis, 1862 (GBIF: Trogon rufus)
Cabanis described the species in 1862 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Trogon was introduced in 1760 by Brisson. Trogon is Greek, from trōgōn 'gnawing, fruit-eating'. tenellus is Latin for 'delicate, dainty', a diminutive of tener, after the small, slender build. The specimen the first description was based on came from Costa Rica.