Wedge-billed Hummingbird

Schistes geoffroyi painted by John Gould

Stained- neck Hummingbird or wedge -billed Hummingbird ( Schistes geoffroyi ) is a species of bird in the family of hummingbirds ( Trochilidae ). The species has a distribution area that the South American countries of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia covers. The stock is assessed by the IUCN as endangered not (Least Concern ).

Features

The stained neck Hummingbird reaches a body length of about 8-9 centimeters. The relatively short beak is up to 15 millimeters long. In males the upper side and the apex are bright green. The rear part of the back and upper tail-coverts are copper-colored. Behind the eye there is a white spot. The throat is also bright green. Side of the chest, there are blue and magenta purple spots, including a small white spot. The ear-coverts are blackish. The lower abdomen is bronze-green. The also bronze green, rounded tail is blue to the rear and has at the end clear black blue stripe with white hems. The female is very similar. What is different is the white throat, which is littered with strong green speckles. The different colors in the male chest patches are predominantly blue in the female.

Distribution and habitat

This hummingbird is in the higher elevations of the tropical and subtropical zones before at altitudes 800-2300 m. Here, you can find him on both the eastern and on the western slopes of the Andes. It likes to live in moist to wet mountain forests, especially of moss -covered cloud forest. More rarely, one can observe him at forest edges. The animals move predominantly in the near-bottom thickets of the forest as well as in shady ravines.

Way of life

The type sucks nectar from flowers.

Subspecies

So far, three subspecies are known, which differ mainly by their coloring.

• S. geoffroyi g ( Bourcier, 1843); Nominatform described above. North of Venezuela National Park Perijá Zulia, Andes of the states of Táchira and Lara, but also in the coastal mountains of Yaracuy, Carabobo and Aragua. In Colombia, on the western slopes of the eastern Andes as far as Magdalena. Probably in the east Nariños. The subspecies is also found on the eastern slopes of Ecuador, Mindo and in the southwest of the province and in the eastern Andes of Peru Cañar.

• P g albogularis ( Gould, 1851); Vertex glitters green. Copper color on the back and upper tail-coverts missing. The breast is predominantly white and has far less green spots. The female has a white chest and small white tufts on the side. The sides of the chest are mainly blue and not purple. Western Colombia on the western slopes of the Western and Central Andes. Western Nariño. In Ecuador in Carchi northern Imbabura over to Colombia.

• P g chapmani ( Berlioz, 1941); White lateral spot as in the nominate missing. In Peru, in the southern part of the regions of Cusco and Puno. In central Bolivia, Cochabamba.

Alternate Name

1963 presented at the XIII International Augusto Ruschi Ornitholical Congress work with the name Notes on Trochilidae: the genus Augastes. In this work he placed the species in the genus Schistes Augastes, ferrous neck Hummingbird was given the scientific name Augastes geoffroyi. This classification has been ignored until Professor Karl -Ludwig Schuchmann 1999, she took over in Handbook of the Birds of the World. Ruschi justifies the union of the two genera with morphological similarities. The South American Classification Committee contradicts this view, if only for the fact that both genera have a very different beak.