Blue-headed hummingbird

Appearance

The blue-headed hummingbird is 9 to 11 cm long. Males weigh about 4.7 g and females about 4.5 g. The male has a straight, mostly black, bill whose mandible is pinkish at the base. Its head is metallic violet-blue, the back shining green, and the uppertail coverts 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.

Distribution

The blue-headed hummingbird is restricted to the islands of Dominica and Martinique in the central Lesser Antilles.

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.

Habitat

It inhabits the edges and interior of undisturbed forest and also secondary forest along rivers. It is rare at sea level and most numerous between elevations of 800 and 1,000 m.

Reproduction

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 tree "Ceiba pentandra" and usually decorates its outside with dead leaves. It is placed on horizontal twigs or fern fronds between 1 and 4 m above the ground. The female incubates the clutch of two eggs for 16 to 18 days; fledging occurs 20 to 23 days after hatch.

Food

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