White-tailed Hummingbird
Eupherusa poliocerca
Rather local but distinctive, medium-sized hummingbird found in foothills of the Sierra Madre del Sur in Guerrero, Mexico; endemic. Favors humid evergreen forest and shade-coffee plantations. Mainly feeds at low to middle levels, darting quickly among flowers and flashing open its mostly white tail. Both sexes have a bright rusty panel in the wings, which appears as a blur when hovering. Male is brilliant green overall. Female is pale gray below and has less white in the tail.
Identification
The white-tailed hummingbird is 10 to 11 cm (3.9 to 4.3 in) long and weighs 4.5 to 5 g (0.16 to 0.18 oz). Both sexes have a straight black bill. Males have bright metallic bronze green upperparts. Rufous primaries and secondaries show as a patch on the folded wing. Their central pair of tail feathers are metallic bronze green and the other four pairs grayish white. Their underparts are bright metallic yellowish green with white undertail coverts. Females have bright metallic golden green upperparts with a similar wing "patch" as the male's. Their central tail feathers are metallic golden green and the others white with some dusky or bronze green. Their underparts are grayish white with metallic green spots on the side and white to grayish white undertail coverts.
Taxonomy
The white-tailed hummingbird is monotypic. However, in the past some authors have treated the Oaxaca hummingbird (E. cyanophrys) as a subspecies of it. Others have treated the white-tailed as a subspecies of the stripe-tailed hummingbird (E. eximia).
- Scientific name
- Eupherusa poliocerca
- Authority
- Elliot, DG, 1871
- Order
- Apodiformes
- Family
- Trochilidae
- Genus
- Eupherusa
Range and habitat
The white-tailed hummingbird is found on the Pacific slope of the southwestern Mexican state of Guerrero and slightly into western Oaxaca. It inhabits the edges and interior of humid montane, semi-deciduous, and pine-oak forest, and plantations. It apparently requires intact forest and is not found in shade coffee plantations. In elevation it ranges between 800 and 2,440 m (2,600 and 8,000 ft).
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The white-tailed hummingbird's movements are not well known, but it might make seasonal elevational changes.<p>The white-tailed hummingbird forages for nectar at all levels of the forest from the understory to the canopy. Its diet has not been described in detail but it is known to feed at flowers of Inga, Lobelia, Malvaviscus, and Psittacanthus and some others. It is also assumed to feed on small arthropods like other hummingbirds.<p>The white-tailed hummingbird's breeding phenology is scarcely known. The timing of specimens in breeding condition suggest two breeding peaks, February to May and September to October. Its nest has not been described.<p>The white-tailed hummingbird's song has been described as "a high, rapid, slightly liquid to squeaky warbling". One call is "a liquid to slightly buzzy, rolled chip, often run into rattled trills". As of mid-2022 the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library has very few recordings and xeno-canto has none.
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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