HUMMINGBIRD SPECIES

Green-crowned Brilliant

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Heliodoxa jacula

The Green-crowned Brilliant is known as the Green-fronted Brilliant. It is a large, robust hummingbird.

Males are 5.1 inches long and weigh 9.5 grams. They are mainly bronze-green with a glittering green crown, forehead, throat and breast. They have a white spot behind the eye, a small violet-blue throat patch, white thighs, and a deeply forked blue-black tail.

Females are 4.7 inches long and weigh 8 grams. They have green-spotted white underparts, a white spot behind the eye and a white stripe below the eye, and a white-cornered shallowly-forked black tail.

Young birds resemble the adults of the same sex, but are duller, bronze-tinged below and have buff throats.

It has a loud squeaky "kyew" call.

Feeds at the large inflorescences of Marcgravia vines, which the male will sometimes defend.

It will also feed at Heliconia and other large flowers. Unlike many hummingbirds, the Green-crowned Brilliant almost always perches to feed.

Inhabits wet mountain forests including edges, gaps and tall second growth. It occurs typically between 700 and 2,000 meters in altitude, mainly on the Caribbean slopes.

Resident breeder in the highlands from Costa Rica to western Ecuador.

Nest is a bulky cup of plant fibers and scales of tree ferns saddled on a thin down sloping branch. The female alone incubates the 2 white eggs.

SOURCE:
https://en.wikipedia.org