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Pirre Hummingbird | Goldmania bella
Roodwangkolibrie | Colibrí del Pirre
The Pirre Hummingbird is a small hummingbird found only on a few remote ridges in eastern Darién and adjacent Colombia. The male has a cinnamon chin, a rufous forehead and lores, and a cinnamon tail with black tips. The species was formerly placed in a genus of its own, Goethalsia.
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Voice
A single sharp note, repeated in a long series from a perch.
No recording with a suitable Creative Commons licence is available for this species yet.
Identification
8–9 cm, with a straight black bill. The male has a rufous forehead and lores, a cinnamon chin, a glittering blue-green throat, breast and belly, and white undertail coverts. The upperparts are green with a bronze sheen. The central tail feathers are bronze-green with a black tip, the others cinnamon with black tips. The female is green above, without the rufous forehead, with rufous lores and pale cinnamon underparts.
Confusion species
Violet-capped Hummingbird Goldmania violiceps has no cinnamon on the face; the male has a violet-blue crown and a dark reddish-brown tail. Rufous-tailed Hummingbird Amazilia tzacatl is larger and has a red bill with a dark tip and a rufous tail without black tips. Greenish Puffleg Haplophaedia aureliae is larger, has white leg puffs and a dark tail.
Habitat
Understorey at the edges and in the interior of humid montane forest and cloud forest, at about 600 to 1650 m. It feeds low down at flowers of shrubs and epiphytes.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
In the guide area only in eastern Darién province in Panama, on a few isolated ridges, mainly the Serranía de Pirre. Outside the guide area in adjacent Chocó in Colombia.
- Resident
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On the ridge of Cerro Pirre in Darién National Park, from the Cana field station or via Rancho Plástico. The area is remote and can only be reached on an organised trip.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. The range is small and the species is known from few sites. Much of its habitat lies in Darién National Park and is hard to reach, which has so far protected the forest from clearing.
Scientific name
Goldmania bella | (Nelson, 1912)
Nelson described the species in 1912 as Goethalsia bella; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Goldmania was introduced in 1911 by Nelson. Goldmania honours the American zoologist and conservationist Edward Alphonso Goldman (1873–1946), who collected widely in Mexico and Panama. bella is Latin for 'pretty, beautiful' (from bellus), after the handsome plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cana, Darién, Panama, c. 600 m.