The sooty-capped hermit (''Phaethornis augusti'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in the family

Trochilidae 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 ...

, the

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 ...

s. It is found in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

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 ...

French Guiana French Guiana, or Guyane in French, is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France located on the northern coast of South America in the Guianas and the West Indies. Bordered by Suriname to the west ...

Guyana Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...

Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...

, and

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

.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 24 August 2021. Species Lists of Birds for South American Countries and Territories. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCCountryLists.htm retrieved August 24, 2021

Taxonomy and systematics

The sooty-capped hermit is closely related to the

planalto hermit The planalto hermit (''Phaethornis pretrei'') is a species of hummingbird. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Peru.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B ...

(''P. pretrei'') and may form a

superspecies In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

with it. Three subspecies of sooty-capped hermit are recognized, the nominate ''P. a. augusti'', ''P. a. curiosus'', and ''P. a incanescens''. A fourth proposed subspecies ''P. a. vicarius'', in the Colombian Andes, cannot be separated from the nominate.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 24 August 2021. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved August 24, 2021Hinkelmann, C., P. F. D. Boesman, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Sooty-capped Hermit (''Phaethornis augusti''), 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.socher1.01 retrieved November 29, 2021

Description

The sooty-capped hermit is about long. Males weigh and females . They are mostly grayish brown above with a rufous rump and uppertail

coverts A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are small feathers behind t ...

. The next-to-inner tail feathers are longer than the others and all have white tips. Their underparts are gray. The face has a black "mask" with a white

supercilium The supercilium is a plumage feature found on the heads of some bird species. It is a stripe which runs from the base of the bird's beak above its eye, finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head.Dunn and Alderfer (2006), p. 10 Also k ...

and gular stripe. The subspecies differ slightly in the intensity of the breast and uppertail covert colors and the size of the gular stripe. What was once thought to be a separate species ''P. fumosus'' was determined to be a

melanistic Melanism is the congenital excess of melanin in an organism resulting in dark pigment. Pseudomelanism, also called abundism, is another variant of pigmentation, identifiable by dark spots or enlarged stripes, which cover a large part of the bod ...

morph of the nominate sooty-capped hermit.

Distribution and habitat

Major taxonomic systems place the nominate subspecies of sooty-capped hermit in Venezuela's Coastal Range and eastern Andes and south on the eastern slope of Colombia's Eastern Andes; ''P. a. curiosus'' in the isolated

Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (English: ''Snow-Covered Mountain Range of Saint Martha'') is an isolated mountain range in northern Colombia, separate from the Andes range that runs through the north of the country. Reaching an elevation of ...

of northeastern Colombia; and ''P. a incanescens'' on the

tepui A tepui , or tepuy (), is a member of a family of table-top mountains or mesas found in northern South America, especially in Venezuela, western Guyana, and northern Brazil. The word tepui means "house of the gods" in the native tongue of the ...

s of southern Venezuela, western Guyana, and Brazil's

Roraima Roraima ( ) is one of the 26 states of Brazil. Located in the country's North Region, it is the northernmost and most geographically and logistically isolated state in Brazil. It is bordered by the state of Pará to the southeast, Amazonas t ...

state.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 The South American Classification Committee (SACC) 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 ...

places the species in those four countries and also French Guiana and Suriname.

Behavior

Movement

The sooty-capped hermit is thought to be mostly sedentary, but some seasonal vertical movement has been documented.

Feeding

The sooty-capped hermit is a " trap-line" feeder like other hermit hummingbirds, visiting a circuit of flowering plants for nectar. It also consumes 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, and has been observed catching them in buildings.

Breeding

Active nests of the sooty-capped hermit have been found in Venezuela between February and July and also between September and December. The nest is a cone-shaped cup; a typical one was made of moss and spider web with pieces of dried mud on the outer wall. It was suspended by a single stout cable of

spider silk Spider silk is a protein fibre or silk spun by spiders. Spiders use silk to make webs or other structures that function as adhesive traps to catch prey, to entangle and restrain prey before biting, to transmit tactile information, or as nest ...

from a nail in a storehouse. Nests may be reused multiple times within a season. The clutch size is two eggs.

Vocalization

The sooty-capped hermit's song is "a continuously repeated phrase consisting of 2–3 high notes followed by 2–3 somewhat lower ones, e.g. 'tsee-tsee-tsee-sew-sew....tsee-tsee-tsee-sew-sew...'." The male sings from a perch at a lek while wagging its tail. It also makes a "rather monotonous 'tseet'" call.

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 sooty-capped hermit as being of Least Concern; though its population size is unknown it is believed to be stable. It is considered locally uncommon to common and seems "to adapt well to habitats modified by man".

References

External links

A photograph of a nest (Wikiaves) {{Taxonbar, from=Q1269968 Phaethornis, sooty-capped hermit Birds of the Colombian Andes Birds of the Venezuelan Coastal Range Birds of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Birds of the Tepuis Hummingbird species of South America sooty-capped hermit sooty-capped hermit