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Oaxaca Hummingbird | Eupherusa cyanophrys
Oaxacakolibrie | Colibrí miahuatleco
The Oaxaca Hummingbird lives only on the Pacific slope of the Sierra Madre del Sur in southern Oaxaca, mainly in the Sierra de Miahuatlán. The male has a violet-blue forehead and a turquoise crown. Both sexes have a rufous patch in the wing and much white in the tail.
Voice
The song is a high, rapid warble, jerkier and less hurried than that of White-tailed Hummingbird. The call is a liquid to slightly buzzy, rolled chip.
Recording: Richard E. Webster — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
10–11 cm, with a straight black bill. The male has a violet-blue forehead, a turquoise crown, emerald-green upperparts, glittering green underparts and white undertail coverts. The secondaries form a rufous patch in the wing. The central tail feathers are green, the outer ones whitish. The female has the same wing patch, pale grey underparts and white outer tail feathers with dark green markings.
Confusion species
White-tailed Hummingbird Eupherusa poliocerca occurs further west and lacks the blue forehead and turquoise crown. In Stripe-tailed Hummingbird Eupherusa eximia, which in Oaxaca occurs mainly in the north and east, the outer tail feathers have black outer webs and black tips. Berylline Hummingbird Saucerottia beryllina also has rufous in the wing, but a purplish-brown tail without white.
Habitat
Edges and interior of humid montane forest, semi-deciduous forest and pine-oak forest, at about 700 to 2600 m, most often below 1800 m. It also occurs in shade coffee at the forest edge.
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 and to Mexico. Only on the Pacific slope of the Sierra Madre del Sur in southern Oaxaca, mainly in the Sierra de Miahuatlán between San Gabriel Mixtepec and Pluma Hidalgo.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Along highway 175 between San José del Pacífico and Puerto Ángel, and in the coffee fincas around Pluma Hidalgo, often at flowering shrubs at the forest edge.
Conservation status
Endangered. The population is estimated at 600 to 1700 mature birds and is declining. Forest within the small range is being lost to logging and clearing for farming. Where the forest is intact, the species is still fairly common.
Scientific name
Eupherusa cyanophrys | Rowley & Orr, 1964
Rowley & Orr described the species in 1964 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Eupherusa was introduced in 1857 by Gould. Eupherusa is Greek, from eu 'well, finely' and pherousa 'bearing' (from pherō 'to carry'): 'finely bearing', probably after the boldly patterned tail. cyanophrys is Greek, from kuanos 'dark blue' and ophrus 'eyebrow, brow', after the male's blue crown. The specimen the first description was based on came from 18 km south of Juchatengo, Oaxaca, Mexico, c. 1430 m.