Male Volcano Hummingbird (Selasphorus flammula)

            Just Outside San Jose
Virgin Forest Reserve
Costa Rica
Talamanca Mountains

Click on image to enlarge.

The Volcano Hummingbird (Selasphorus flammula) is a very small hummingbird about three inches long which breeds only in the mountains of Costa Rica and Chiriqui, Panama.

This tiny endemic bird inhabits open brushy areas, paramo, and edges of elfin forest at altitudes from 1850 m to the highest peaks. It is only 7.5 cm long. The male weighs 2.5 g and the female 2.8 g. The black bill is short and straight.

The adult male Volcano Hummingbird has bronze-green upperparts and rufous-edged black outer tail feathers. The throat is grey-purple in the Talamanca range, red in the Poas-Barva mountains and pink-purple in the Irazú-Turrialba area, the rest of the underparts being white. The female is similar, but her throat is white with dusky spots. Young birds resemble the female but have buff fringes to the upperpart plumage.

The female Volcano Hummingbird is entirely responsible for nest building and incubation. She lays two white eggs in her tiny plant-down cup nest 1–5 m high in a scrub or on a root below a south or east facing bank.

The food of this species is nectar, taken from a variety of small flowers, including Salvia and Fuchsia, and species normally pollinated by insects. Like other hummingbirds it also takes some small insects as an essential source of protein. The call of this rather quiet species is a whistled teeeeuu. – Wikipedia

Taken in: Costa Rica / Provincia de Alajuela / San Pedro (show map)

Taken on: March 12, 2011

Tags:

Costa Rica 2011

Just Outside San Jose

Costa Rica

Talamanca Mountains

Volcano Hummingbird

Selasphorus flammula

Male

Very Small

3 Inches long

Mountains

Brushy Areas

Paramo

Edges Of Elfin Forest

1850 Feet

Black Bill

Female Responsibloe for Nest Building

Rearing Young

Eat Nectar

Insects

Sue Roehl

Pentax K7

Handheld

Cropped

coth5

NGC

Sunrays+5 « less

Sets appears in: • Costa Rica, March 2011

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