Baird's Trogon
Trogon bairdii
Unique trogon with dark purplish head and breast, turquoise back, white undertail, and pale blue bill and eyering. No white band between chest and belly. Female mostly gray with red belly, perhaps most similar to Slaty-tailed Trogon but note pale blue eyering, gray bill, and thin white bars on undertail. Limited range. Look for a bird sitting upright and still at middle levels in the forest, slowly turning head searching for prey. Usually single or in pairs. Song is a fairly fast, accelerating series of cluck notes.
Identification
Baird's trogon is 25 to 28 cm (9.8 to 11.0 in) long and weighs about 95 g (3.4 oz). The male's head and most of the breast are bluish black and the rest of the underparts a rich bright red. It has a stout light blue bill and ring around the eye. The upperparts are metallic blue-green and the wings mostly blackish with some white on the primary feathers. The upper side of the tail feathers are greenish- to violet-blue with black tips. Their underside is white with black tips. The female replaces the blue and green with dark slate above and a paler gray in the throat and breast. The underparts have less red and the underside of the tail is barred with black and white.
Taxonomy
Baird's trogon is sometimes treated as conspecific with one or both of green-backed trogon (T. viridis) and white-tailed trogon (T. chionurus). They do form a sister group with black-headed trogon (T. melanocephalus) and citreoline trogon (T. citreolus). Baird's trogon is monotypic.
- Scientific name
- Trogon bairdii
- Authority
- Lawrence, 1868
- Order
- Trogoniformes
- Family
- Trogonidae
- Genus
- Trogon
Range and habitat
Baird's trogon is found on the Pacific slope of Costa Rica from approximately the Tárcoles River south just into western Panama's Chiriquí Province. It primarily inhabits the interior canopy of humid rainforest but also occurs at its edges, in tall secondary forest, and in shady semi-open woodland. In elevation it ranges from sea level to 1,200 m (3,900 ft).
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
Baird's trogon forages by sallying to take fruits and insects from foliage and will also take prey from the ground. Small vertebrates are a minor part of its diet.<p>Baird's trogon breeds between April and August. They nest in a cavity in the decaying trunk of a dead tree. The clutch size is two to three eggs; incubation takes 16 to 17 days, and fledging takes about 25 days from hatching.<p>The song of Baird's trogon is a "series of barking notes, first level, then accelerating and falling abruptly, sometimes terminating with several widely spaced notes on [a] lower pitch". It also makes a "sharp cackle" when bothered.
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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