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Green Hermit | Phaethornis guy
Groene heremietkolibrie | Ermitaño verde
The Green Hermit is a large, dark hermit with a long, curved bill and elongated central tail feathers that lives in the understorey of foothill and montane forest in Costa Rica and Panama. Males sing in groups at fixed sites in the forest, called leks, where they wag their tails to attract females. It lives higher up than the other hermits of the guide area.
Voice
The call is a loud zurk, often in flight. At the lek each male repeats a simple, grating swaark for long periods.
Recording: Juan Freile — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
12–13 cm excluding the elongated, white-tipped central tail feathers, which project a further 2 cm or so beyond the tail. The bill is long, about 4 cm, and curved, with a black upper mandible and a red lower mandible. The male is dark green with a blue-green rump; a black mask runs through the eye, bordered by a buff stripe above and a buff moustachial stripe, and a pale stripe runs down the centre of the throat. The female is grey below instead of green and has a longer bill and longer central tail feathers.
Confusion species
Long-billed Hermit Phaethornis longirostris usually lives lower down, is bronze-green to olive above with a buff-scaled rump, has grey-brown to buff underparts and a yellow lower mandible. Stripe-throated Hermit Phaethornis striigularis is much smaller and cinnamon below. Pale-bellied Hermit Phaethornis anthophilus of eastern Panama has whitish underparts and a less curved bill. White-tipped Sicklebill Eutoxeres aquila has a strongly hooked bill and streaked underparts.
Habitat
Understorey of humid foothill forest and montane rainforest, often in ravines and along streams, and the edges of such forest, roughly from 500 to 2000 m, locally lower. Also shady coffee plantations and gardens at the forest edge. It forages along a fixed route at heliconias and other flowers with a long corolla, and also eats small arthropods.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
In Costa Rica in the foothills and middle elevations of the Caribbean slope, in the Cordillera de Talamanca and on the Pacific side of the Cordillera de Tilarán and the Talamanca. In Panama in the mountains and foothills of Chiriquí, Bocas del Toro, Veraguas and Coclé, around Cerro Azul and in the mountains of Darién. Fairly common in suitable forest. Outside the guide area in northern Colombia and Venezuela, on Trinidad and along the eastern Andean slopes to Peru.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Along forest trails in the foothills of Costa Rica and at lodges with heliconias at the forest edge; in Panama around El Valle de Antón and Cerro Azul. The bird often appears suddenly in front of a heliconia and dashes off again, but returns along its route; a lek can be found by following the persistent calling of the males.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common in suitable forest, but dependent on forest with a well-developed understorey.
Scientific name
Phaethornis guy | (Lesson, 1833)
Lesson described the species in 1833 as Trochilus Guy; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Phaethornis was introduced in 1827 by Swainson. Phaethornis is Greek, from phaethōn 'sun, shining' and ornis 'bird': 'sun-bird'. guy honours J. Guy (fl. 1833), a French amateur collector; possibly the same as the French preparator Claude-Joseph Guy. The specimen the first description was based on came from Venezuela (originally given in error as 'Brazil').