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Bronzy Hermit | Glaucis aeneus
Bronzen heremietkolibrie | Ermitaño bronceado
The Bronzy Hermit is a small hermit with rufous underparts and coppery bronze upperparts that lives in dense heliconia thickets along rivers and forest edges in the lowlands. It was formerly included in Rufous-breasted Hermit, which replaces it in eastern Panama. Like other hermits it does not defend a territory, but flies a fixed route past scattered flowers.
Voice
A high, penetrating sweep or tseep, often in flight as the bird dashes along its route. The song is a short series of high, thin notes.
Recording: GABRIEL LEITE — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
10–11 cm, with a long, strongly curved bill of about 3 cm; the upper mandible is black, the lower mandible yellow with a dark tip. The upperparts are coppery bronze-green, the underparts uniform dark rufous. The head shows a dark eyestripe between a pale stripe above and a pale moustachial stripe. The rounded tail is rufous with a broad black band before the white tips; the central feathers are bronze-green. The female is slightly duller.
Confusion species
Rufous-breasted Hermit Glaucis hirsutus in central and eastern Panama is almost identical but has greener upperparts and paler, less dark rufous underparts; the two species hardly overlap. Band-tailed Barbthroat Threnetes ruckeri has a blackish throat, a cinnamon breast band, a grey belly and white at the tail base. Long-billed Hermit Phaethornis longirostris and Stripe-throated Hermit Phaethornis striigularis have elongated, white-tipped central tail feathers.
Habitat
Dense heliconia thickets, rank growth and scrub along rivers and streams, forest edges, clearings and secondary forest in the lowlands, and neglected banana and cacao plantations, from sea level to about 700 m. It mainly visits heliconias and other flowers whose corolla matches the length and curvature of its bill. The small nest hangs from the underside of the tip of a heliconia or palm leaf, often over water.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
On the Caribbean side from eastern Honduras through Nicaragua and Costa Rica to western Panama in Bocas del Toro, and on the Pacific side in south-western Costa Rica, around the Golfo Dulce and on the Osa Peninsula, and in Chiriquí. Fairly common in Costa Rica, local in Honduras and Nicaragua. Outside the guide area along the Pacific side of Colombia to western Ecuador.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
At heliconia thickets along rivers and canals in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica, such as around Tortuguero and Sarapiquí, and on the Osa Peninsula. The bird returns regularly along its route, so waiting at a flowering heliconia gives the best chance.
Conservation status
Not threatened. It tolerates secondary forest, rank growth and neglected plantations as long as heliconias grow there.
Scientific name
Glaucis aeneus | Lawrence, 1868
Lawrence described the species in 1868 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Glaucis was introduced in 1831 by Boie. Glaucis comes from Greek glaukos 'blue-grey, glaucous', after the dull greenish plumage. aeneus is Latin for 'bronze', after the bronze-green upperparts. The specimen the first description was based on came from Costa Rica.