Bay-headed Tanager - BirdForum Opus

Subsepcies toddi
Photo by Robert Scanlon
Photographed in Colombia, May 2004

Tangara gyrola

Identification

14 cm

• Plumage varies widely between the subspecies.
• Chestnut head
  

Distribution

Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Bolivia, southern Brazil, north east Venezuela and Trinidad.

Taxonomy

Subspecies bangsi
Photo by Jim Crosswell
Finca Oro, Costa Rica, February 2007

Subspecies^[1]

• T. g. bangsi:

• Humid tropical and subtropical Costa Rica and western Panama

• T. g. deleticia: Green between the red and blue in the throat and upper chest

• Eastern Panama (Darién) and western Colombia

• T. g. nupera:

• Extreme south-western Colombia (Nariño) and western Ecuador

• T. g. toddi:

• Mountains of northern Colombia (Santa Marta and Perijá) and north-western Venezuela (Andes) to Trinidad

• T. g. viridissima:

• Coastal north-eastern Venezuela; winters in Trinidad

• T. g. catharinae:

• Eastern base of Eastern Andes of Colombia to central Bolivia

• T. g. parva:

• South-eastern Colombia to southern Venezuela, north-eastern Peru and north-western Brazil

• T. g. gyrola: Green, blue belly, thin gold collar on the hind neck. Sexes are similar, but immatures are duller with chestnut-flecked green heads.

Subspecies deleticia
Photo by olivewarbler
Dapa, Valle, Colombia, June 2008

• Southern Venezuela to the Guianas and extreme northern Brazil

• T. g. albertinae:

• Brazil south of the Amazon (Rio Purús to Pará, northern Mato Grosso)

Habitat

Gardens, highland river borders, forest edge, humid forests.

Behaviour

Diet

The diet includes fruit and insects.

Breeding

They build a bulky cup nest in a tree. The 2 brown-blotched white eggs are incubated by the female for 13-14 days. The young fledge about 15-16 days later.

Vocalization

The song is a slow seee, seee, seee, tsou, tsooy. The call in the West Andes of Colombia is a raspy beeww, which is very similar to the call of Red-eyed Vireo. A call given when moving is a rapid tst-tst-tst.

References

1. Clements, JF. 2008. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2008. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019.
2. Wikipedia
3. BF Member observations

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Bay-headed Tanager. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 23 May 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Bay-headed_Tanager

External Links

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