HUMMINGBIRD SPECIES

Blue-Tailed Emerald

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Chlorostilbon mellisugus

The Blue-Tailed Emerald is a common small green hummingbird of humid lowlands.

It is 3 inches long and weighs 2.6 grams.

Bill is black and relatively short and straight.

Males have a brilliant green plumage, with white thighs and a dark metallic blue tail (clearly forked in the northern part of its range; slightly so in the central and southern part).

Females are average smaller than the males and also differ by the gray-white underparts, a blackish ear patch, a short white supercilium/post-ocular streak and white-tipped outer tail feathers.

CALL: A pebbly “tsip”.

SONG: A pleasant twittering. 

Feeds on insects and nectar.

It is a bird of savanna, scrub, cultivation and similar semi-open woodland. In the Amazon, where generally uncommon and more localized than in the northern part of its range, it mainly occurs at forest edge and in várzea.

Found in tropical and subtropical South America, from Colombia to the Guianas and Trinidad, and south to northern Bolivia and central Brazil. It also occurs in Central America, from Mexico to Panama.

The female lays her eggs in a small cup nest, similar to that of the ruby-topaz hummingbird, placed on a horizontal tree branch. Incubation is 13 days with a further 18 days to fledging.

SOURCES:
https://en.wikipedia.org
http://www.oiseaux-birds.com