Blue-headed Hummingbird
Riccordia bicolor
A hummingbird of forest openings and edges where it feeds in understory on flowers and insects. The male is splendidly clothed in iridescent deep blue and green. The female is dingy white below and mostly shimmering green above, but note the blue iridescence to the crown and tail as well as the blackish face. The Antillean Crested Hummingbird somewhat resembles the female of this species, but it often shows a crest, is shorter billed, shorter tailed, and lacks the Blue-headed Hummingbird’s blue tail. Vocalizations include a series of descending shrill metallic notes as well as a metallic “tic-tic-tic.”
Identification
The blue-headed hummingbird is 9 to 11 cm (3.5 to 4.3 in) long. Males weigh about 4.7 g (0.17 oz) and females about 4.5 g (0.16 oz). The male has a straight, mostly black, bill whose mandible is pinkish at the base. Its head is metallic violet-blue, the back shining green, and the uppertail coverts deep blue. The forked tail is steel blue. The chin and throat are the same metallic violet-blue as the head; the rest of the underparts are metallic green with a blue gloss. The female's bill is entirely black. Its crown is shining green and the cheeks dusky with a small gray spot behind the eye. Its back and flanks are bronze-green. The tail is shining bronze whose outer feathers have a wide steel blue band near the end and large gray tips. Its underside is pale brownish gray.
Taxonomy
The blue-headed hummingbird was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the other hummingbirds in the genus Trochilus and coined the binomial name Trochilus bicolor. Gmelin based his description on "Le saphir-ésmeraude" that been described in 1779 by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. Buffon believed his specimen had come from Guadeloupe but this was an error for Dominica.<p>The blue-headed hummingbird was formerly the only species placed in the genus Cyanophaia. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014 found that Cyanophaia was nested within the resurrected genus Riccordia. Based on that study and others, the North American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society, the International Ornithological Committee (IOC), and the Clements taxonomy merged it into Riccordia. However, as of 2020 BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) retained it in Cyanophaia.<p>Genus Riccordia had originally been introduced in 1854 by the German ornithologist Ludwig Reichenbach with the Cuban emerald as the type species. Reichenbach based the genus name on the specific epithet of the type species recordii which had been chosen by Paul Gervais to honour the French surgeon-naturalist Alexandre Ricord (born 1798). The specific name bicolor is Latin meaning "two-colored".<p>The blue-headed hummingbird is monotypic.
- Scientific name
- Riccordia bicolor
- Authority
- (Gmelin, JF, 1788)
- Order
- Apodiformes
- Family
- Trochilidae
- Genus
- Riccordia
Range and habitat
The blue-headed hummingbird is restricted to the islands of Dominica and Martinique in the central Lesser Antilles. It inhabits the edges and interior of undisturbed forest and also secondary forest along rivers. It is rare at sea level and most numerous between elevations of 800 and 1,000 m (2,600 and 3,300 ft).
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
Migration pattern: Resident species.
Conservation
Population trend: declining.
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Other Birds
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Pterodroma pycrofti
Small gadfly petrel. Gray upperparts and head, with darker “M” across wings. Underside white, with thin dark wing edge leading into a short diagonal bar cutting into the underwing. Main colonies breed on Mercury, Hen and Chickens, Poor Knights, and Ririwha Islands in New Zealand. Forages in warmer waters off the northern North Island. After breeding, migrates to the central North and Southwest Pacific. Cook’s Petrel is larger and paler but hard to differentiate at sea. Gould’s Petrel has a darker head, giving it a capped appearance, and more extensive dark on the underwing.
Javan Kingfisher
Halcyon cyanoventris
Large kingfisher with a massive lipstick-red bill. Note dark head, dark chestnut throat and chest, purplish body, electric blue wings, and large black shoulder patch. Bright white wing patches revealed in flight. Uses a variety of both wet and dry lowland and foothill habitats, including ponds, mangroves, agricultural fields, open forest, and scrub. Can be close to human habitation. Gives high piping screams, often in series.
Cerulean Warbler
Setophaga cerulea
Brilliant sky-blue warbler of the high canopy. Prefers mature deciduous forest, either in riparian areas or dry mountain ridge-tops. Tends to stay high in the canopy; thus, can be difficult to see blue color. From below, look for white throat and belly, thin necklace, and dark streaks on sides. Female is a unique muted turquoise with pale eyebrow and blurry streaks on sides. Immature birds show yellow wash on underparts. All plumages have bold white wingbars. Easiest to detect in spring and summer by its loud buzzy song, similar to Black-throated Blue but usually richer and more distinctly three-parted; much lower-pitched than Blackburnian Warbler. Winters primarily on the east slope of the Andes from Venezuela to Bolivia.
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