Short-crested Coquette
Lophornis brachylophus
Tiny, scarce, and very local hummingbird restricted to humid forest and shade-coffee plantations in foothills of Sierra Madre del Sur, Guerrero. Feeds quietly at middle to high levels in flowering trees. Feeding flight is slow and insectlike, flying with tail cocked and showing off big white to buffy-white band across lower back—easily passed off as a big bee or moth. Male has short, spiky orange crest, green throat, and rusty tail sides. Female rather drab, with dull orange forehead, and dingy whitish underparts.
Identification
The short-crested coquette is 7 to 7.5 cm (2.8 to 3.0 in) long. Both sexes have a short, straight, black bill. The adult male has a short rufous erectile crest; its longest feathers have green tips. It has emerald green upperparts with a white band between the back and the bronzy purple lower rump and green uppertail coverts. The throat is iridescent emerald green and the face features short orange cheek tufts tipped green. A white band separates the throat from the rest of the underparts, which are pale cinnamon. The central tail feathers are green and the rest reddish cinnamon with black tips. The adult female lacks the male's crest and cheek patches. Its forehead is dull cinnamon. Its upperparts are pale green; a buffy to whitish band separates the back from the dull green rump. The throat is whitish with a white band below it and the rest of the underparts are pale cinnamon. The central tail feathers are green with blackish tips and the rest cinnamon with a black bar near the end and pale buff tips. Immatures resemble the adult female.
Taxonomy
The short-crested coquette is monotypic. At times it has been treated as conspecific with the rufous-crested coquette (L. delattrei).
- Scientific name
- Lophornis brachylophus
- Authority
- Moore, RT, 1949
- Order
- Apodiformes
- Family
- Trochilidae
- Genus
- Lophornis
Range and habitat
The short-crested coquette is found only in Mexico, in the extremely restricted range of a 25 km (16 mi) stretch of the Atoyac-Paraíso-Puerto del Gallo road in the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains of Guerrero, Mexico, north-west of Acapulco. It inhabits semi-deciduous and humid evergreen forest, pine-oak forest, and plantations. In elevation it ranges between 900 and 1,800 m (3,000 and 5,900 ft).
- Migration
- Resident species
Behavior
The short-crested coquette is believed to be sedentary but some altitudinal movement is probable.<p>The short-crested coquette feeds on small arthropods and on the nectar of a variety of small flowering plants. It catches insects by hawking from a perch. It defers to larger hummingbirds.<p>The short-crested coquette's breeding season is probably from November to February, but nothing else is known about its breeding phenology.<p>The short-crested coquette is mostly silent. It gives a "high, sharp 'sip' or 'tsip'" while feeding and also "quiet dry chips 'chi..chi-chi..'." Its wings make "a low bee-like humming" when hovering. Few recordings of its vocalization have been published.
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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