Appearance
Like other manakins, white-bearded manakin is a compact, brightly coloured forest bird, typically 10.7 centimetres long and weighing 16.5 grams. The adult male has a black crown, upper back wings and tail, and the plumage is otherwise white. He has orange legs.The female and young males are olive-green and resemble female golden-headed manakins, but they have orange legs. The race endemic to Trinidad, "M. m. trinitatis" is larger than mainland birds, and the female has yellower underparts.
Behavior
The male white-bearded manakin has a fascinating breeding display at a communal lek. Each male clears a patch of forest floor to bare earth, and perches on a bare stick. The display consists of rapid leaps between sticks and the ground, accompanied by a loud wing snap, the whirring of the wings, and a "chee-poo" call. Groups of up to 70 birds may perform together, the largest leks being in Trinidad.Apart from the buzzing display song, white-bearded manakin has a number of other calls, including a trilled musical "peeerr".
Reproduction
This manakin is a fairly common bird of forests, second growth and plantations. The female builds a shallow cup nest low in a tree; two brown-mottled white eggs are laid, and incubated entirely by the female for about 18–19 days, with a further 13–15 days to fledging. The young are fed mainly on regurgitated fruit with some insects.
Food
These manakins eat fruit and some insects.References:
Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.
