The buff-winged starfrontlet (''Coeligena lutetiae'') is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

hummingbird Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the Family (biology), biological family Trochilidae. With approximately 366 species and 113 genus, genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but most species are found in Cen ...

in the "brilliants", tribe

Heliantheini Heliantheini is one of the two Tribe (biology), tribes that make up the subfamily Lesbiinae of the hummingbird family (biology), family Trochilidae. The other tribe in the subfamily is Lesbiini. The informal name "brilliants" has been proposed f ...

in subfamily

Lesbiinae Lesbiinae is one of the six subfamilies that make up the hummingbird family Trochilidae. The subfamily is divided into two tribes: Heliantheini ("brilliants") containing 14 genera and Lesbiini ("coquettes") containing 18 genera. Phylogeny A mol ...

. It is found in

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

, and

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

.HBW and BirdLife International (2020) ''Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world'' Version 5. Available at: http://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v5_Dec20.zip xls zipped 1 MBretrieved 27 May 2021

Taxonomy and systematics

The buff-winged starfrontlet and most other members of genus ''Coeligena'' were at one time placed in genus ''Helianthea'' but have been in their current placement since the mid-1900s.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 31 January 2022. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved February 1, 2022 The

International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) is an international organization for the promotion of ornithology. It links basic and applied research and nurtures education and outreach activities. Specifically, the IOU organizes and funds global co ...

(IOC) and

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 i ...

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) recognize two subspecies, the nominate ''C. l. lutetiae'' and ''C. l. albimaculata''. However, 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 ...

treats the species as

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 "unisp ...

.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

Description

The buff-winged starfrontlet is about long. Males weigh and females about . Both sexes have a long, black, slightly upturned bill and a white spot behind the eye. Both sexes have a forked tail though the female's is not as deeply indented as the male's. Males of the nominate subspecies has velvety black upperparts with a glittering green forehead. They have a violet

gorget A gorget ( ; ) was a band of linen wrapped around a woman's neck and head in the English medieval clothing, medieval period or the lower part of a simple chaperon (headgear), chaperon hood. The term later described a steel or leather Collar (c ...

and the rest of the underparts are dark green. The wings are dark with a large cinnamon-buff patch and the tail is bronzy black. Nominate females have shining dark green upperparts. Their throat is cinnamon-buff and the rest of the underparts golden green with pale fringes on the feathers. They have the same cinnamon-buff wing patch as the males but the tail is bronzy green.Züchner, T., P. F. D. Boesman, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Buff-winged Starfrontlet (''Coeligena lutetiae''), version 1.0. 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.buwsta1.01 retrieved 2 May 2022 Males of subspecies ''C. l. albimaculata'' have almost white wing patches but are otherwise like the nominate. Females have a paler throat than the nominate and a cinnamon tinge to the underparts, whose golden green is also less iridescent. Buff-winged starfrontlet (Coeligena lutetiae lutetiae) young male in flight Caldas.jpg, young male ''C. l. lutetiae'', Colombia Buff-Winged Starfrontlet (Coeligena lutetiae).jpg, male ''C. l. albimaculata''
Yanacocha Reserve, Ecuador Buff-winged-Starfrontlet-(F).jpg, female ''C. l. albimaculata''
Yanacocha Reserve, Ecuador

Distribution and habitat

The nominate subspecies of buff-winged starfrontlet is found from the Central Andes of Colombia south through the Andes of Ecuador into far northern Peru. ''C. l. albimaculata'' is found only in northwestern Ecuador. The species inhabits

cloudforest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud cover, ...

elfin forest A "natural National Park in the Philippines, a UNESCO World Heritage Site file:Mount Kemiri (8187817161).jpg, An elfin forest in Sumatra's Gunung Leuser National Park Dwarf forest, elfin forest, or pygmy forest is an uncommon ecosystem feat ...

, and the lower edges of ''

páramo Páramo () may refer to a variety of alpine tundra ecosystems located in the Andes Mountain Range, South America. Some ecologists describe the páramo broadly as "all high, tropical, montane vegetation above the continuous timberline". A narrower ...

''. In elevation it ranges from but is most common around .

Behavior

Movement

The buff-winged starfrontlet is generally sedentary, though some movement to follow flowering plants has been noted.

Feeding

The buff-winged starfrontlet feeds on nectar by

trap-lining In ethology and behavioral ecology, trap-lining or traplining is a feeding strategy in which an individual visits food sources on a regular, repeatable sequence, much as Animal trapping, trappers check their lines of traps. Traplining is usually ...

, visiting a circuit of flowering plants, but it also will defend patches of flowers. It most often forages at low levels at the margins of forest, and often clings to flowers to feed as well as hovering. In addition to feeding on nectar it captures small

arthropod Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an arthropod exoskeleton, exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often Mineralization (biology), mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated (Metam ...

s by gleaning from foliage and by hawking.

Breeding

The buff-winged starfrontlet's breeding season in Colombia is August and September; it is not defined elsewhere. It builds a cup nest in a branch fork, typically about above ground. The female incubates the clutch of two eggs for 15 to 17 days; the time to fledging has not been determined.

Vocalization

The buff-winged starfrontlet makes a "thin, wiry chatter with rattles", often during territorial disputes. While feeding it often repeats "a characteristic, nasal 'unk'".

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

has assessed the buff-winged starfrontlet as being of Least Concern, though its population size is not known and is believed to be decreasing. Though it has a fairly large overall range, its habitat is patchy, fragmented, and under continuing threat of deforestation. It is not thought likely to accept human-made habitats like gardens.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q898544 Coeligena Birds of the Colombian Andes Birds of the Ecuadorian Andes Birds described in 1846 Taxa named by Jules Bourcier Taxonomy articles created by Polbot