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Tacarcuna Chlorospingus | Chlorospingus tacarcunae
Tacarcunatangare | Clorospingo del Tacarcuna
The Tacarcuna Chlorospingus is an olive Chlorospingus with a pale eye and a yellowish throat and breast. It lives only in the mountains of eastern Panama and adjacent north-western Colombia. For a long time it was regarded as a subspecies of Common Chlorospingus.
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Voice
The call is a sharp, high tsip, often repeated within groups. The song is poorly described and resembles that of Common Chlorospingus: a rapid series of high, dry notes.
Recording: Jorge Enrique Avendaño — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm. Head and upperparts plain olive green, without a white spot or stripe behind the eye. Iris pale, standing out against the olive head. Throat and breast yellowish to olive-yellow; belly paler, flanks olive. Bill dark and pointed. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Common Chlorospingus Chlorospingus flavopectus, further west in Panama, has a greyer head with a white spot behind the eye and a speckled, dull white throat. Pirre Chlorospingus Chlorospingus inornatus, in the mountains of eastern Darién, has a darker head and lives on other peaks; in the field the location is the most useful guide.
Habitat
Humid foothill and lower montane forest and cloud forest, mainly between about 600 and 1,500 metres, and its edges. It lives in small groups in the middle levels and joins mixed foraging flocks. It eats insects and small fruits.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Endemic to the mountains of eastern Panama and adjacent north-western Colombia: Cerro Jefe and Cerro Azul east of Panama City, the Serranía de San Blas and the mountains of northern Darién, including Cerro Tacarcuna on the border with Colombia.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Most easily reached on Cerro Jefe and Cerro Azul, where small groups in mixed foraging flocks can be seen along forest edges and roads; at close range the pale eye is immediately obvious.
Conservation status
Not threatened (LC). Small range; deforestation and the spread of housing and pasture on the lower slopes are a local threat.
Scientific name
Chlorospingus tacarcunae | Griscom, 1924
Griscom described the species in 1924 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Chlorospingus was introduced in 1851 by Cabanis. Chlorospingus is Greek, from khlōros 'green' and spingos 'finch', after the olive-green upperparts. tacarcunae refers to Cerro Tacarcuna in eastern Panama, where the species was discovered. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cerro Tacarcuna, eastern Panama.