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White-necked Jacobin | Florisuga mellivora
Witnekkolibrie | Colibrí nuca blanca
The White-necked Jacobin is a large, robust hummingbird of the forests of Trinidad and Tobago, and the only species in the region with a white tail and a white nape band. Males often dominate flowering trees and feeders, chasing off other hummingbirds. Some females wear a plumage resembling the male's, so not every bird in male-like dress is a male.
Voice
Fairly quiet. The call is a short, high tsik; chases are accompanied by a descending series swee-swee-swee-swee. The song is a long series of high, single notes at a slow rate of about one per second.
Recording: Brice de la Croix — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12 cm, with a short, straight black bill. The male has a dark blue head and breast, a white band across the hindneck, a glossy green back and a white belly. The tail is white with narrow black tips and is often fanned when the bird takes off or hovers, making it flash. The female is green above; throat and breast are blue-green scaled with white, the belly is white and the tail green with a blue-black terminal band. Immatures show every stage between female and male plumage.
Confusion species
No other hummingbird in the region combines a white tail with a dark blue head. Black-throated Mango Anthracothorax nigricollis is similar in size but has a curved bill, a black central stripe down throat and breast and a purplish-red tail. White-tailed Sabrewing Campylopterus ensipennis of Tobago also shows much white in the tail but is larger, with a slightly curved bill, a violet-blue throat and grey underparts. The female stands out by the white-scaled, blue-green throat and breast contrasting sharply with the white belly.
Habitat
The canopy and edges of humid forest, tall secondary forest, clearings and shaded cacao and coffee plantations, from sea level up into the higher parts of the hills. At forest edges it also enters gardens. It feeds at flowering trees, often several birds in one tree, and catches many small insects in flight, often high above a clearing or stream.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Common resident in Trinidad and Tobago, on both islands mainly in the forested hills. Recorded as a vagrant on Aruba and Curaçao. Outside the region from southern Mexico through Central America and northern South America to Peru, Bolivia and Amazonian Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In Trinidad a regular visitor to the feeders at the Asa Wright Nature Centre in the Northern Range, where males often rule the site; in Tobago at feeders and flowering trees in and around the Main Ridge forest. A flying male is recognised at long range by the flashing white tail.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species is widespread and numerous and tolerates secondary forest and plantations; it is common in Trinidad and Tobago.
Scientific name
Florisuga mellivora | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Trochilus mellivorus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Florisuga was introduced in 1850 by Bonaparte. Florisuga is Latin, from flos, floris 'flower' and sugere 'to suck': 'flower-sucker'. mellivora is Latin, from mel 'honey' and vorare 'to devour': 'honey-eating', after its nectar feeding. The specimen the first description was based on came from Suriname (originally given in error as 'India').