Blue-black Grosbeak - BirdForum Opus

Subspecies cyanoides
Photo by Luis R
Barinitas, Venezuela, September 2014

Cyanoloxia cyanoides

Identification

Female or young male, subspecies cyanoides
Photo by njlarsen
San Francisco Reserve, eastern Panama, January 2018

17–18·5 cm (6¾-7¼ in)
Male

• Shiny blue-black overall plumage
• Lighter blue rump
• Brighter blue forehead and superciliary area
• The bill has a straight culmen and is large enough to seem like an extension of the crown. It is dark in the male, bluish grey in the female.

Female: dark rufous-brown overall plumage

Distribution

Central and South America: in)
Central America: Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama
South America: Colombia, Venezuela, western Ecuador, and north-westernmost Peru. It is mostly found west and north of the Andes but in Venezuela also on the eastern slope.

Taxonomy

Amazonian Grosbeak has recently been split from this species.

Subspecies

Subspecies concreta
Photo by JWN Andrewes
Cockscomb, Belize, March 2007

There are three subspecies^[1]:

• C. c. concreta:

• Lowlands of south-eastern Mexico (Veracruz) to Guatemala and Honduras

• C. c. toddi: (also known as caerulescens)

• Nicaragua to Costa Rica and western Panama

• C. c. cyanoides:

• Central and eastern Panama to Colombia, north-western Venezuela, western Ecuador, and north-westernmost Peru

Habitat

Humid evergreen forest, thickets, and dense vegetation may also been seen in dry scrub.

Behaviour

Diet

Their mostly vegetarian diet consists of seeds, from grass, bamboo, maize and rice.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Gill, F and D Donsker (Eds). 2015. IOC World Bird Names (version 5.2). Available at http://www.worldbirdnames.org/.
3. Avibase
4. Fitzgibbon, D. and N. L. Block (2020). Blue-black Grosbeak (Cyanoloxia cyanoides), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.bubgro1.01

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Blue-black Grosbeak. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 19 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Blue-black_Grosbeak

External Links

Search for photos of Blue-black Grosbeak in the gallery

GSearch checked for 2020 platform.