HUMMINGBIRDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA

Blue-Throated Sapphire

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Hylocharis Eliciae

Adults have a green back that turns into bronze-green on the tail, a bright green crown, violet throat and upper chest. The chest is bronzy green and the sides have green flecks and bright gold tail feathers.

Males have a glittering bluish-violet throat patch while the female's greyish with green or blue spots and paler plumage below.

BILL: bright red, straight with black tip. male - red with black tip female - blackish above and red below.

SIZE: A medium-sized hummingbird measuring about 3.5 inches (from bill to end of tail) in length.

WEIGHT: males weigh about 4.1 grams and females 3.6 grams.

COLOR: green, bronze-green, violet, gold, red, black, white, grey, blue and dark brown.

Subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest and heavily degraded former forest.

NECTAR from a variety of brightly colored, scented small flowers of trees, herbs, shrubs, and epiphytes.

INSECTS small insects and spiders.

Hovering, sometimes hanging while feeding from flowers.

NEST: cup-shaped nest out of plant fibers woven together and green moss on the outside for camouflage in a protected location in a shrub, bush or tree.

EGGS: 2 white eggs.

Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama.

The Blue-Throated Sapphire is also known as the Blue-Throated or Elicia's Goldentail.

REFERENCES: https://www.beautyofbirds.com/

                         https://en.wikipedia.org/

                         https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/