Long-tailed Sylph - BirdForum Opus

Male
Photo by edenwatcher
Tapichalaca, Ecuador, March 2006

Aglaiocercus kingii

Identification

Female
Photo by firecrest15
Guango Lodge, East Andes, Ecuador, April 2015

Male: tail up to 4.5 inches, = 114 mm or more than half the length (much shorter in female). Male is mostly green with bluish highlights on throat, darker green in face and paler on crown, with white leggings, and the long outer tail feathers blue (rest of tail feathers shorter and greentipped, but normally held closed so does not usually give impression of scissor-tail).
Female: underparts cinnamon to orange, with white leggings, white chin and throat with green spots in rows, and green wash to flanks and undertail area. Upperside mostly green with blue fore-crown and front and blue tail

Similar species

Female from female Violet-tailed Sylph by green top and rear crown with blue limited to front part of crown, while entire crown is blue in Violet-tailed.

Distribution

South America: found in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.

Taxonomy

Subspecies

Possibly a young male?
Photo by Aralcal
Aralcal, Manizales, Colombia, June 2010

Six subspecies are recognized^[1]:

• A.k. margarethae:

• Mountains of north-central and coastal Venezuela

• A.k. caudatus:

• Andes of northern Colombia and western Venezuela

• A.k. emmae:

• Central and Western Andes of Colombia to north-western Ecuador

• A.k. kingi:

• Eastern Andes of Colombia

• A.k. mocoa:

• Central Andes of southern Colombia to Ecuador and northern Peru

• A.k. smaragdinus:

• Eastern Andes of Peru and yungas of western Bolivia

Habitat

Cloud Forest, forest borders, coffee forest, gardens, and other semi-open areas with flowering trees or bushes; observed at 2100m.

Behaviour

Male, Subspecies mocoa
Photo by Stanley Jones
Amazonas, Abra Patricia Reserve, Owlet Lodge, Peru, January 2017

Diet

Their diet consists of nectar and insects. They readily visit feeders.

May have a regular route for visiting spread out flowers (trap-lining) or may defend an area with many flowers. Are known to pierce holes at bottom of the flower of corolla.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2016. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2016, with updates to August 2016. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Avibase
3. Restall et al. 2006. Birds of Northern South America. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300124156
4. BF Member observations
5. Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved June 2015)

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Long-tailed Sylph. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 2 May 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Long-tailed_Sylph

External Links

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