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Volcano Hummingbird | Selasphorus flammula
Vulkaankolibrie | Colibrí volcanero
The Volcano Hummingbird is one of the smallest birds of the highlands of Costa Rica and western Panama. It lives high on the volcanoes and in the Cordillera de Talamanca, up to above the treeline. The throat colour of the male differs between mountain ranges.
Voice
A high, thin tsip or tsit, often repeated, and in chases a dry twitter. The wings of the male produce a high, buzzing trill in flight.
Recording: stevedunbar — CC BY-NC 4.0 · converted to mono · iNaturalist
Identification
7–8 cm, with a short, straight black bill. The upperparts are bronze-green. The male has a glittering throat that differs between populations: rose-red on the Irazú and Turrialba volcanoes, reddish-purple on Poás and Barva, and greyish-purple in the Cordillera de Talamanca and Chiriquí. The breast is white, the flanks greenish with some rufous, and the tail dark with narrow rufous edges. The female has a white throat finely spotted green, rufous flanks and a rounded tail with a rufous base, a black band and white tips to the outer feathers.
Confusion species
Scintillant Hummingbird Selasphorus scintilla is smaller, usually lives lower down and has much more rufous on the underparts and in the tail; the male has an orange-red throat. Glow-throated Hummingbird Selasphorus ardens lives lower and further east in Panama and also has a rufous tail. Fiery-throated Hummingbird Panterpe insignis, which occurs in the same area, is much larger, with a blue breast and an orange throat.
Habitat
Open mountain slopes, páramo, scrub, forest edges and clearings in oak forest, pastures with shrubs and gardens, mainly above 1850 m up to the highest peaks, well above 3000 m. Outside the breeding season some birds move lower. It feeds low down at small flowers of shrubs and herbs, and catches small insects.
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. In Costa Rica on the volcanoes of the Cordillera Central (Poás, Barva, Irazú and Turrialba) and in the Cordillera de Talamanca; in western Panama in the high mountains of Chiriquí, including Volcán Barú.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Common on the summit of Volcán Irazú and along the Pan-American Highway over Cerro de la Muerte; in Panama around Cerro Punta and on Volcán Barú. Often at low flowering shrubs along roadsides and in gardens of highland farms.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common in suitable high mountain terrain. The range is small, but a large part of it lies within protected areas.
Scientific name
Selasphorus flammula | Salvin, 1865
Salvin described the species in 1865 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Selasphorus was introduced in 1832 by Swainson. Selasphorus is Greek, from selas 'light, flame' and -phoros 'bearing': 'light-bearer', after the fiery, glittering throat. flammula is Latin for 'little flame', diminutive of flamma 'flame', after the male's glowing gorget. The specimen the first description was based on came from Irazú Volcano, Costa Rica.