Steely-vented Hummingbird - BirdForum Opus

Saucerottia saucerottei

Amazilia saucerottei

Identification

Subspecies warscewiczi
Photo © by NJ Larsen
Hotel Minca, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, 20 August 2023

8-11 cm (3¼-4¼ in), with straight, medium long bill.

• Bronze-green upperparts, becoming more bronze on the wing, lower back and rump
• Blue-black tail
  

Male:

• Glittering green underparts
• White thighs
• Blue vent

Female is duller green below and has grey-buff edges to the vent feathers.

Young birds are dull dark bronze-green below. Bill is black above with some red at the base of the lower mandible.

ID Points: red lower mandible, blue tail,
white socks
Photo © by NJ Larsen
Hotel Minca, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, 26 August 2023

Distribution

Photo © by Pitter
Cali, Colombia, 2004

South America: found in Colombia and northwestern Venezuela.

Taxonomy

Blue-vented Hummingbird has been split from Steely-vented Hummingbird.

Subspecies

Three subspecies are recognized¹:

• S. s. warscewiczi - northern Colombia and extreme northwestern Venezuela
• S. s. saucerottei - Colombia (west slope of Western Andes and Cauca Valley)
• S. s. braccata - Andes of w Venezuela (Mérida and Trujillo)

Habitat

Open shrubland and woodland, coffee plantations, gardens, savanna, and the edges and gaps of evergreen forests. More often encountered in dry than wet areas. Found from sea level to pretty high up in foothills or even mountains.

Behaviour

Poorly known.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2022. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2022. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Gill, F, D Donsker, and P Rasmussen (Eds). 2020. IOC World Bird List (v 10.2). Doi 10.14344/IOC.ML.10.2. http://www.worldbirdnames.org/
3. SACC baseline
4. Weller, A.A., P. F. D. Boesman, and H. F. Greeney (2020). Steely-vented Hummingbird (Amazilia saucerottei), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, B. K. Keeney, P. G. Rodewald, and T. S. Schulenberg, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.stvhum2.01

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