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Speckled Hummingbird - BirdForum Opus

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Male
Photo © by Steve Blain
San Isidro, Ecuador, September 2004
Adelomyia melanogenys

Identification

8·5–9 cm (3¼-3½ in)

  • Dark ear mask
  • Buffy white streak behind eye
  • Speckling on the breast and throat
  • Buff tips to tail
  • Short straight black bill

Sexes similar

Distribution

Subspecies melanogenys
Photo © by Stanley Jones
Amazonas, Abra Patricia Reserve, Owlet Lodge, Peru, January 2017

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

Taxonomy

Subspecies

Nine subspecies are recognized[1]:

  • A. m. cervina:
  • A. m. sabinae:
  • West slope of the Eastern Andes of Colombia (Santander and Boyacá)
  • A. m. melanogenys:
  • Eastern Andes of Colombia and western Venezuela to south-central Peru
  • A. m. connectens:
  • Southern Colombia (Huila)
  • A. m. debellardiana:
  • Mountains of Venezuela (Lara, Trujillo, M‚rida, T chira, Perij )
  • A. m. aeneosticta:
  • Mountains of central and northern Venezuela
  • A. m. maculata:
  • Western Andes of Ecuador and northern Peru
  • A. m. chlorospila:
  • Andes of south-eastern Peru
  • A. m. inornata:

Habitat

Humid temperate forest with ornamental plantings, secondary growth and scrub, coffee forest. Garden feeders and lodge grounds. Observed at 2700 m elevation.

Behaviour

Diet

Their main diet consists of nectar from the flowers of trees and shrubs.

Breeding

They construct a bulky cup-shaped nest from moss and cobwebs. It is lined with plant fibre.

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. BF Member observations
  4. Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved June 2017)
  5. Birdforum thread discussing taxonomy of this species

Recommended Citation

External Links

Retrieved from ‘https://www.birdforum.net/wiki/index.php?title=Speckled_Hummingbird&oldid=238268’
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