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Blue-capped Motmot | Momotus coeruliceps
Blauwkruinmotmot | Momoto corona azul
The Blue-capped Motmot is a large motmot of north-eastern Mexico and the northernmost of the four Momotus species in the guide area. For a long time it was treated, together with Lesson's Motmot, Whooping Motmot and several South American forms, as a single species, Momotus momota, then called Blue-crowned Motmot. Since the recent split it is a species of its own and the only one with an entirely blue crown.
Voice
A low, hollow, owl-like hoo-hoop, usually disyllabic and heard mainly at dusk and dawn; pairs sometimes call alternately.
Recording: Richard E. Webster — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
38–41 cm, about half of it tail. The whole crown is turquoise to sky blue, without a black centre, with a slightly more violet-blue rear edge. A black mask runs through the eye. The back, wings and tail are green to blue-green; the underparts are olive-green with a rufous tinge, with a small black, blue-edged spot on the breast. The two central tail feathers end in a blue, black-tipped racket on a bare stretch of shaft. The eye is red. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Lesson's Motmot Momotus lessonii, which replaces Blue-capped Motmot to the south in Veracruz, has a black crown with only a blue ring around it. Russet-crowned Motmot Momotus mexicanus (Pacific slope and interior) is smaller and has a rufous crown. Turquoise-browed Motmot Eumomota superciliosa has a green crown with a broad turquoise brow and a long bare section in the tail, and does not range this far north.
Habitat
Humid and semi-deciduous foothill forest, gallery and riparian forest, also the lower parts of cloud forest, secondary forest, forest edges, shade coffee and wooded ravines; from the lowlands to about 1500 m. It sits still for long periods in the shade of the lower and middle layers, flicking its tail. It eats large insects, small vertebrates and fruit. It nests in a self-dug tunnel in a bank or road cut.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Endemic to north-eastern Mexico: on the Gulf slope and in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental from Nuevo León and Tamaulipas through San Luis Potosí, eastern Querétaro and Hidalgo and northern Puebla into Veracruz. Further south in Veracruz it is replaced by Lesson's Motmot. Not present outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the El Cielo Biosphere Reserve near Gómez Farías in Tamaulipas and in the Huasteca Potosina in San Luis Potosí. The bird often sits motionless for long periods; the low hoo-hoop call at dusk and dawn usually reveals it first.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The range is small, but the species is locally common within it and also occurs in coffee plantations and secondary forest.
Scientific name
Momotus coeruliceps | (Gould, 1836)
Gould described the species in 1836 as Prionites coeruliceps; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Momotus was introduced in 1760 by Brisson. Momotus comes from 'momot', a corruption (Nieremberg, 1635) of an onomatopoeic Nahuatl (Aztec) word for a blue-capped tropical bird. coeruliceps is Latin, from caeruleus 'sky-blue' and -ceps '-headed', after the entirely blue crown. The specimen the first description was based on came from Tamaulipas, Mexico.