The blue-headed hummingbird (''Riccordia bicolor'') is a species of

hummingbird Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the biological family Trochilidae. With about 361 species and 113 genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but the vast majority of the species are found in the tropics ar ...

in the "emeralds", tribe Trochilini of subfamily Trochilinae. It is found only on the islands of Dominica and

Martinique Martinique ( , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago language, Kalinago: or ) is an island and an Overseas department and region, overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of ...

in the

Lesser Antilles The Lesser Antilles ( es, link=no, Antillas Menores; french: link=no, Petites Antilles; pap, Antias Menor; nl, Kleine Antillen) are a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. Most of them are part of a long, partially volcanic island arc bet ...

.Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ Retrieved August 25, 2021

Taxonomy and systematics

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 Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...

's ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nom ...

''. He placed it with all the other hummingbirds in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

Trochilus The streamertails are hummingbirds in the genus ''Trochilus'', that are endemic to Jamaica. It is the type genus of the family Trochilidae. Today most authorities consider the two taxa in this genus as separate species, but some (e.g. AOU ...

'' and coined the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''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 Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including two prominent F ...

in his ''Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux''. Buffon believed his specimen had come from

Guadeloupe Guadeloupe (; ; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Gwadloup, ) is an archipelago and overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands— Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and the ...

but this was an error for Dominica. The blue-headed hummingbird was formerly the only species placed in the genus ''Cyanophaia''. A

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

study published in 2014 found that ''Cyanophaia'' was nested within the resurrected genus ''

Riccordia ''Riccordia'' is a genus of birds in the hummingbird family Trochilidae. They are endemic to the Caribbean. Species The species now placed in this genus were formerly assigned to the genus ''Chlorostilbon''. A molecular phylogenetic study publish ...

''. Based on that study and others, the North American Classification Committee of the

American Ornithological Society The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its ...

, the

International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union, formerly known as the International Ornithological Committee, is a group of about 200 international ornithologists, and is responsible for the International Ornithological Congress and other international ...

(IOC), and the

Clements taxonomy ''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World'' is a book by Jim Clements which presents a list of the bird species of the world. The most recent printed version is the sixth edition (2007), but has been updated yearly, the last version in 202 ...

merged it into ''

''. However, as of 2020

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. ...

(HBW) retained it in ''Cyanophaia''. Genus ''Riccordia'' had originally been introduced in 1854 by the German ornithologist

Ludwig Reichenbach Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach (8 January 1793 – 17 March 1879) was a German botanist and ornithologist. It was he who first requested Leopold Blaschka to make a set of glass marine invertebrate models for scientific education and museum ...

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 Paul Gervais full name François Louis Paul Gervais (26 September 1816 – 10 February 1879) was a French palaeontologist and entomologist. Biography Gervais was born in Paris, where he obtained the diplomas of doctor of science and of medicine ...

to honour the French surgeon-naturalist Alexandre Ricord (born 1798). The specific name ''bicolor'' is

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

meaning "two-colored". The blue-headed hummingbird is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

Description

The blue-headed hummingbird is long. Males weigh about and females about . The male has a straight, mostly black, bill whose

mandible In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movable bon ...

is pinkish at the base. Its head is metallic violet-blue, the back shining green, and the uppertail

coverts A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which, as the name implies, cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are s ...

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.Schuchmann, K.L. and P. F. D. Boesman (2021). Blue-headed Hummingbird (''Riccordia bicolor''), version 1.1. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.blhhum1.01.1 retrieved July 30, 2022

Distribution 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 A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has re-grown after a timber harvest or clearing for agriculture, until a long enough period has passed so that the effects of the disturbance are no longer evident. ...

along rivers. It is rare at sea level and most numerous between elevations of .

Behavior

Movement

The blue-headed hummingbird is sedentary.

Feeding

The blue-headed hummingbird forages for nectar from a variety of flowering plants and trees; it feeds at all levels of the forest. In addition to nectar it feeds on

arthropod Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...

s captured by hawking from a perch, especially over streams, and also gleans them from leaves.

Breeding

The blue-headed hummingbird's breeding season spans from March to May. It builds a cup nest of soft plant fibers like those of the silk-cotton (kapok) tree ''

Ceiba pentandra ''Ceiba pentandra'' is a tropical tree of the order Malvales and the family Malvaceae (previously emplaced in the family Bombacaceae), native to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, northern South America, and (as the variety ''C. pentan ...

'' and usually decorates its outside with dead leaves. It is placed on horizontal twigs or fern fronds between above the ground. The female incubates the clutch of two eggs for 16 to 18 days; fledging occurs 20 to 23 days after hatch.

Vocalization

The blue-headed hummingbird's calls include "shrill, metallic notes, rapidly descending in pitch, and a metallic 'click-click-click'."

Status

The IUCN has assessed the blue-headed hummingbird as being of Least Concern, though it has a limited range and its population size is unknown and believed to be decreasing. It is patchily distributed on the two small islands. The population on Dominica was greatly reduced by hurricanes in the 1980s and is only slowly recovering.

References

External links

Stamps
(for Dominica,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

)
Blue-headed hummingbird photo gallery
VIREO

Oiseaux {{Taxonbar, from=Q1041419 blue-headed hummingbird Birds of the Lesser Antilles Hummingbird species of Central America blue-headed hummingbird blue-headed hummingbird Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Endemic birds of the Caribbean Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN