The blue-capped puffleg (''Eriocnemis glaucopoides'') is a species of

hummingbird Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the biological family Trochilidae. With about 361 species and 113 genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but the vast majority of the species are found in the tropics aro ...

in the "brilliants", tribe

Heliantheini Heliantheini is one of the two tribes that make up the subfamily Lesbiinae of the hummingbird family Trochilidae. The other tribe in the subfamily is Lesbiini. The informal name "brilliants" has been proposed for this group as it includes the ge ...

in subfamily

Lesbiinae Lesbiinae is one of the six subfamily, subfamilies that make up the hummingbird family (biology), family Trochilidae. The subfamily is divided into two Tribe (biology), tribes: Heliantheini ("brilliants") containing 14 genera and Lesbiini ("coqu ...

. It is found in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

and

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

.HBW and BirdLife International (2020) ''Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world'' Version 5. Available at: http://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v5_Dec20.zip xls zipped 1 MBretrieved 27 May 2021

Taxonomy and systematics

The blue-capped puffleg is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

Description

The blue-capped puffleg is long and weighs . It has a straight black bill. The male has dark green upperparts with a dark glittering blue forehead. Its underparts are mostly golden green, with a bluish green lower breast and shining purplish blue undertail

coverts A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which, as the name implies, cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are sm ...

. Its leg puffs are white. The tail is long, forked, and blue-black. The female's upperparts are also dark green but without the blue forehead. Its throat, breast, and belly are bright cinnamon-buff and the undertail coverts have pale buff fringes. The female's tail is less deeply forked than the male's.Heynen, I. and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Blue-capped Puffleg (''Eriocnemis glaucopoides''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.blcpuf1.01 retrieved March 15, 2022

Distribution and habitat

The blue-capped puffleg is the southernmost representative of its genus. It is found from Bolivia's

La Paz La Paz (), officially known as Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Spanish pronunciation: ), is the seat of government of the Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bolivia. With an estimated 816,044 residents as of 2020, La Paz is the List of Bolivian cities ...

and

Cochabamba Cochabamba ( ay, Quchapampa; qu, Quchapampa) is a city and municipality in central Bolivia in a valley in the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cochabamba Department and the fourth largest city in Bolivia, with a population of 63 ...

departments south into northwestern Argentina's

Salta Salta () is the capital and largest city in the Argentine province of the same name. With a population of 618,375 according to the 2010 census, it is also the 7th most-populous city in Argentina. The city serves as the cultural and economic ce ...

and Tucumán provinces. It generally inhabits humid slopes of grass and dense shrubs and the edges of

cloudforest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud c ...

. In Argentina it also occurs in somewhat dryer landscapes. In elevation it ranges from but is most common between .

Behavior

Movement

The blue-capped puffleg is generally sedentary. However, it is known to make seasonal elevational movements in Argentina and suspected to do so in Bolivia.

Feeding

Almost nothing is known about the blue-capped puffleg's diet or feeding behavior. It has been observed taking nectar from low-growing plants.

Breeding

The blue-capped puffleg has been documented breeding in November in Bolivia but little else is known about the species' breeding

phenology Phenology is the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced by seasonality, seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as environmental factor, habitat factors (such as elevation). Examples includ ...

. The female incubates the clutch of two eggs but the incubation period and time to fledging are not known.

Vocalization

The blue-capped puffleg's vocalizations are not well known. As of early 2022,

Xeno-canto xeno-canto is a citizen science project and Information repository, repository in which volunteers record, upload and annotate recordings of Bird vocalization, birdsong and bird calls. Since it began in 2005, it has collected over 575,000 sound r ...

and Cornell University's

Macaulay Library The Macaulay Library is the world's largest archive of animal sounds. It includes more than 33 million photographs, 1.2 million audio recordings, and over two hundred thousand videos covering 96 percent of the world's bird species. There are an ever ...

each had a single recording. The only description of the vocalization is "a high-pitched 'zee-zee'".

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

has assessed the blue-capped puffleg as being of Least Concern. Though its population size is not known it is believed to be stable, and no specific threats have been identified. It is considered overall to be rare but locally common and occurs in two national parks in Argentina.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q883069 blue-capped puffleg Birds of the Yungas blue-capped puffleg Taxonomy articles created by Polbot