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Snowy-bellied Hummingbird | Saucerottia edward
Edwards amazilia | Amazilia vientriblanca
The Snowy-bellied Hummingbird is a medium-sized hummingbird of Panama and south-west Costa Rica, with a sharply demarcated white belly. It lives in semi-open country, forest edges and gardens, and over recent decades has spread north-west in Costa Rica.
Voice
A hard, dry chit, often repeated, and in chases a rattling twitter.
Recording: Kent Livezey — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
9–10 cm, with a straight black bill with a pink base to the lower mandible. The upperparts are green, becoming coppery-bronze to purplish-bronze on the rump and tail. Throat and breast are glittering green and sharply demarcated from the pure white belly and undertail coverts. The sexes are similar; the female has slightly less gloss on throat and breast.
Confusion species
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird Amazilia tzacatl has a grey belly, a red bill and a rufous tail. Charming Hummingbird Polyerata decora and Blue-chested Hummingbird Polyerata amabilis have a blue patch on the breast and a grey belly. Male Sapphire-throated Hummingbird Chrysuronia coeruleogularis has a blue throat and a forked, blue-black tail. Mangrove Hummingbird Chrysuronia boucardi shows a less sharp border between green breast and white belly and lives in mangroves.
Habitat
Forest edges, secondary forest, open woodland, scrub, coffee plantations, wooded pasture and gardens, from sea level to about 1800 m. It feeds at flowers of shrubs and trees and defends flower-rich spots.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Almost confined to the guide area. In south-west Costa Rica on the Pacific slope, including the valley of the Río General and Coto Brus; in Panama on both slopes, mainly the Pacific side, from Chiriquí to eastern Panamá province and Darién. Beyond that at most in extreme north-west Colombia.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In Panama in gardens and along forest edges in the Canal area, around El Valle de Antón and Boquete; in Costa Rica in gardens around San Isidro de El General and at Las Cruces in Coto Brus. Often at flowering shrubs and hedges.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Common in semi-open country, and spreading in Costa Rica.
Scientific name
Saucerottia edward | (Delattre & Bourcier, 1846)
Delattre & Bourcier described the species in 1846 as Trochilus Edward; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Saucerottia was introduced in 1850 by Bonaparte. Saucerottia honours the French physician and ornithologist Antoine Constant Saucerotte; the name derives from the epithet saucerottei (1846). edward presumably honours the English traveller and collector Edward Wilson, brother of the American bird collector Thomas B. Wilson. The specimen the first description was based on came from Isthmus of Panama.