HUMMINGBIRD SPECIES

Bronze-Tailed Plumeleteer

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Chalybura urochrysia

The Bronze-Tailed Plumeleteer is a species of bird in the Trochilidae family.

The Red-footed Plumeleteer is the Costa Rican subspecies C. u. melanorrhoa and has a black, not bronze, tail.

It is 4.33 – 4.72 inches long and weighs 6 grams (female) or 7 grams (male).

Males have bronze-green upperparts, glittering green underparts, a dusky lower belly and a bronze or purple-black tail depending on subspecies.

Females have bronze-green upperparts, gray underparts, including the lower belly, green speckling on the flanks and gray corners to the dusky bronze tail.

Both sexes have pink or red feet.

Young birds resemble the adults, but have buff feather tips to the head, neck and rump feathers.

Has a high metallic "chip" call, and the male’s song is a soft “ter-pleeleeleelee ter-pleeleeleelee ter-pleeleeleelee ter-pleee”.

It is aggressive, territorial, and usually dominant. The male will defend large clumps of Heliconia and other large flowers.

Inhabit forests and have a preference for edges, gaps and secondary growth. It occurs in the Caribbean lowlands, typically up to an elevation of 700 meters.

Central America and South America from eastern Honduras to northwestern Ecuador.

Nest is a deep cup of plant fibers less than 1.5 meters high in a small shrub. The female alone incubates the two white eggs.

SOURCES:
https://en.wikipedia.org
https://www.birdforum.net
https://www.oiseaux.net