Appearance
The Santa Marta woodstar is about 7 cm long. Both sexes have a straight black bill. The male's head is shiny green and the rest of the upperparts dark shiny bluish. It has a reddish gorget that extends across the neck. The breast is gray and the belly bluish with a white spot on the flanks. The tail is forked, with very short central feathers and outer ones that are bare shafts. The female is bronzy green above and pale cinnamon-rufous below with a dark cheek patch and, like the male, a white spot on the flanks. Its rounded tail has green central feathers and the rest are cinnamon with a black bar near the end.
Distribution
The Santa Marta woodstar is found only in the isolated Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta of northern Colombia.Status
The IUCN has assessed the Santa Marta woodstar as being of Least Concern. Though it has a limited range and its population size is unknown, the latter is believed to be stable. It is considered locally common and readily accepts some human-altered landscapes like coffee plantations, though some of its natural habitat is under threat of deforestation.Habitat
It inhabits the edges of montane forest, semi-open woodlands, and coffee plantations, and occasionally visits the lower parts of the "páramo". In elevation it ranges between 825 and 2,000 m.Reproduction
Nothing is known about the Santa Marta woodstar's breeding phenology.Food
The Santa Marta woodstar feeds on nectar and insects, though no details are known. It is assumed to have a foraging strategy and diet like those of its close relative the gorgeted woodstar. That species feeds from vegetation's middle strata to the canopy; one important source is the flowers of "Inga" trees. It does not defend feeding territories, and because of its small size and slow bumblebee-like flight is sometimes able to feed in the territories of other hummingbirds.References:
Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.
