HUMMINGBIRDS OF CENTRAL AMERICA

Rufous-Tailed Hummingbird

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Amazilia Tzacatl

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

Males have golden green to bronze-green upperparts, flanks, and belly, their throat is a glittering golden green and sometimes has a turquoise gleam in certain light.

They have an ashy gray to grayish-brown belly and their tail has traces of bronze-green and copper.

Females have a grayish sub-terminal bar on the throat feathers and they have a white belly. They have slightly different coloration from the males.

Juveniles are darker and grayish towards the belly, their feather-edgings on their face and crown often have a bronzy edge. Their upper mandibles are often black.

BILL: almost straight bill, red with a black tip, the upper bill may appear all black.

SIZE: medium-sized, males are about 4.33 inches in length and females are about 3.15 inches.

WEIGHT: males are larger, weighing about 5.5 grams while females weigh about 5.2 grams.

COLOR: bronze-green, golden-green, green, copper, black, white, red, grey and rufous.

Open country, riverbanks, woodland, scrub, forest edge, coffee plantations and gardens up to 1,850 m (6,070 ft).

NECTAR from a variety of flowers, including Heliconias and bananas.

INSECTS small spiders and insects.

Hovering, while feeding from flowers. Highly aggressive and territorial at rich clumps of flowers. Intruders such as larger hummingbirds, butterflies, and euglossine bees are sometimes attacked with a diving flight.

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.

INCUBATION: 16 to 17 days, female only.