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White-shouldered Tanager | Loriotus luctuosus
Witschoudertangare | Tangara hombriblanca
The White-shouldered Tanager is a small, active tanager of the canopy and edges of humid lowland forest. The black male has a large white shoulder patch. Pairs almost always travel with mixed flocks. In the guide area it occurs from Honduras to Panama; beyond that in much of tropical South America.
Voice
Calls with high, thin tsip notes. The song is a fast, high series of repeated notes, such as chee-chee-chee.
Recording: Juan Freile — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm. A small tanager with a fairly pointed, dark bill. Male glossy blue-black with a large white patch on the shoulder, clearly visible on a perched bird. Female with a grey head, olive-green upperparts and yellow underparts; the throat is paler grey.
Confusion species
The male White-lined Tanager Tachyphonus rufus is larger, with a mostly hidden white shoulder patch that shows mainly in flight. Tawny-crested Tanager Tachyphonus delatrii has an orange-brown crest. The female resembles Grey-headed Tanager Eucometis penicillata, which is much larger, has a crest and lives low in the forest.
Habitat
Canopy, middle levels and edges of humid evergreen lowland and foothill forest, mainly below 1000 m; also tall secondary forest and semi-open country with tall trees. It searches actively among the leaves for insects and also eats fruit.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Caribbean slope of Honduras and Nicaragua, in Costa Rica on the Caribbean slope and in the south also on the Pacific slope, and throughout Panama. Beyond that from Colombia and Venezuela through Amazonia to Bolivia and Brazil, and on Trinidad.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Often well seen from observation towers above the canopy, such as near the Panama Canal and at La Selva in Costa Rica; in a mixed flock the male's white shoulders are noticed first.
Conservation status
Not threatened (LC). Common and widespread.
Scientific name
Loriotus luctuosus | (d'Orbigny, ACVMD & de Lafresnaye, 1837)
D'Orbigny, ACVMD & de Lafresnaye described the species in 1837 as T[achyphonus] luctuosus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Loriotus was introduced in 1821 by Jarocki. Loriotus comes from French loriot 'oriole', the name for the Old World orioles. luctuosus is Latin for 'mournful', after the male's black plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Guarayos, Bolivia.