Snowcap Hummingbird

(Microchera Albocoronata)

Snowcap Hummingbird also known as White-crowned Hummingbird

is one of the smallest hummingbirds of Costa Rica’s fifty-two hummingbird species.

BILL: short black bill.

SIZE: a tiny hummingbird measuring 2.5 inches, including its short bill and tail.

WEIGHT: 2.5 grams.

COLOR: green, white, black, red, purple, bronze, iridescent.

MONTANE FORESTS: found in the canopy and edges of wet forest, as well as adjacent more open woodland.

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

INSECTS small spiders, small insects, flies, and gnats.

Occur naturally in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, as well as Central and Western Panama.

NEST: cup-shaped nest out of plant fibers woven together, lined with soft plant fibers, animal hair and feather down, and strengthens the structure with spider webbing and other sticky material, built on a protected location on a low and skinny horizontal branch of a shrub, bush or tree.

EGGS: 2 elongated white eggs.

INCUBATION: over two weeks, female only.

HOVERING in a horizontal position with tail cocked while feeding, sometimes hanging on the flower while feeding. males defend feeding territories against other Snowcaps, but they are subordinate to larger hummingbird species.