Garden Emerald
Encyclopedia
The Garden Emerald is a small hummingbird
that is an endemic resident breeder in Costa Rica
and western Panama
. It was formerly considered to be a subspecies
of the Blue-tailed Emerald
.
This is a species of open habitats, including bushy savanna, clearings, cultivation, and gardens. It can be found in the Pacific lowlands and hills, locally up to an elevation of 1500 m.
The nest is a neat cup of plant fibres decorated on the outside with bark fragments. The two white eggs are incubated by the female alone.
The Garden Emerald is 8 cm long and weighs 2.6 g. The male has bronze-green upper parts, brilliant green under parts, white thighs and a deeply forked tail. The female has grey underparts, a white stripe behind the eye and dusky ear patches. She has white tips to her tail, which lacks the deep fork of the male. Young birds resemble the adult female, but have some buff feather tips.
The Garden Emerald has a dry chit call, and the males song is a thin tsippy tsee tsee. Breeding males perch on open branches and may give a dive display.
These birds visit small flowers, including those ignored by other species, and will also take tiny insect
s. They are frequently chased off by larger hummingbirds.
Hummingbird
Hummingbirds are birds that comprise the family Trochilidae. They are among the smallest of birds, most species measuring in the 7.5–13 cm range. Indeed, the smallest extant bird species is a hummingbird, the 5-cm Bee Hummingbird. They can hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings...
that is an endemic resident breeder in Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
and western Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
. It was formerly considered to be a subspecies
Subspecies
Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...
of the Blue-tailed Emerald
Blue-tailed Emerald
The Blue-tailed Emerald, Chlorostilbon mellisugus, is a hummingbird found in tropical and subtropical South America east of the Andes from Colombia east to the Guianas and Trinidad, and south to northern Bolivia and central Brazil....
.
This is a species of open habitats, including bushy savanna, clearings, cultivation, and gardens. It can be found in the Pacific lowlands and hills, locally up to an elevation of 1500 m.
The nest is a neat cup of plant fibres decorated on the outside with bark fragments. The two white eggs are incubated by the female alone.
The Garden Emerald is 8 cm long and weighs 2.6 g. The male has bronze-green upper parts, brilliant green under parts, white thighs and a deeply forked tail. The female has grey underparts, a white stripe behind the eye and dusky ear patches. She has white tips to her tail, which lacks the deep fork of the male. Young birds resemble the adult female, but have some buff feather tips.
The Garden Emerald has a dry chit call, and the males song is a thin tsippy tsee tsee. Breeding males perch on open branches and may give a dive display.
These birds visit small flowers, including those ignored by other species, and will also take tiny insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s. They are frequently chased off by larger hummingbirds.