Guianan trogon

Appearance

The Guianan trogon is 23 to 25 cm long and weighs 38 to 57 g. Males and females have very different plumage. Adult males have a violet-blue head with a black mask and throat; their bill is pale blue-gray and their dark eye is surrounded by bare pale yellow skin. The violet-blue of their head extends to the middle of their breast, where a narrow white band separates it from the bright yellow of the rest of their underparts. Their upperparts are bright metallic green and their wings so finely marked with black and white that they appear dark gray-brown. Their tail's upper surface is violet-blue with black tips to the feathers; the lower surface has fine black and white bars and wide white tips to the feathers. Adult females' bills have a blackish culmen and the face has white arcs above and below the eye. Their head and upperparts are dark gray and their wings are thinly but densely barred black and white. Their belly is a duller yellow than the male's and has a gray wash on the flanks. The underside of their tail appears barred on its sides. Juvenile males have browner wings and less white on their undertail than adults. Juvenile females are like the adult.

The Guinan trogon's song is "a long series of rapid hollow downslurred whistles, "kyu-kyu-kyu-kyu-kyu-kyu"". Its calls include "rolling chattering."

Distribution

The Guianan trogon is non-migratory. It is found in eastern Venezuela, the Guianas, and adjacent northern Brazil.

Status

The IUCN follows HBW taxonomy and so has not assessed the Guianan trogon separately from the violaceous trogon "sensu lato". The species is "[r]are and local in Venezuela, but common in Trinidad and Suriname."

Habitat

It inhabits a variety of semi-open landscapes such as savanna, the edges and openings of primary forest, young secondary forest, cacao and coffee plantations, and "terra firme" forest. It ranges as high as 1,200 m in Venezuela.

Reproduction

The Guianan trogon's breeding season is not fully defined but appears to be within the November to June period. It excavates a cavity in arboreal nests of paper wasps, ants, or termites and also in rotten wood or a fern root mass. The clutch size is two or three eggs. The incubation time is not known; fledging occurs at least 17 days after hatch.

Food

The Guianan trogon's diet is fruit and arthropods that it collects while hovering after short sallies from a perch. It often joins mixed-species foraging flocks.