Glittering-throated Emerald

Overview

The Chionomesa fimbriata is a species of hummingbird belonging to the tribe Trochilini. It is distributed across South America, found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, the Guianas, Peru, Trinidad, and Venezuela.

Identification

• Males of the nominate subspecies feature golden- to bronze-green upperparts with a glittering golden-green throat and most of the breast.
• The center of the lower breast and belly are white, while the undertail coverts are white with brownish centers.
• Both sexes possess a straight bill with a blackish maxilla and a pinkish mandible with a dark tip.
• The song consists of a continuously repeated, single, high-pitched buzzy note described as 'tzee...tzee...tzee...' that is usually given at dawn.

Habitat

The species inhabits a wide variety of semi-open to open landscapes, shunning the interior of dense forest. It is found in less dense dry and humid forests, gallery forest, secondary forest, open woodland, savanna, scrublands, caatinga, plantations, and gardens, with the coastal subspecies C. f. tephrocephala also occurring in mangroves.

Diet

The bird forages for nectar at a very large variety of flowering herbs, bushes, vines, and trees, visiting a circuit of flowers through a method known as trap-lining. It seldom feeds higher than the lower strata of trees and supplements its diet with small insects.

Did you know?

The genus name Chionomesa combines the Ancient Greek khiōn meaning 'snow' with mesos meaning 'middle', while the specific epithet fimbriata comes from the Latin fimbriatus meaning 'fringed'.