Gartered Trogon

The gartered trogon (''Trogon caligatus''), also known as the northern violaceous trogon, is a bird in the family Trogonidae, the quetzals and trogons. It is found in Mexico, all of Central America, and Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.

Taxonomy and systematics

Until the early 2000s, what are now the gartered trogon and the Amazonian trogon (''T. ramonianus'') were considered subspecies of the violaceous trogon (''T. violaceous''). The International Ornithological Committee (IOC), the Clements taxonomy, and the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society (AOS-SACC) have implemented the split making them separate species and renaming ''T. violaceous'' the Guianan trogon. However, BirdLife International's ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) retains them as subspecies. The classification schemes that treat the gartered trogon as a species assign three subspecies, the nominate ''T. c. caligatus'', ''T. c. sallaei'', and ''T. c. concinnus''.Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ Retrieved 25 August 2021Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 24 August 2021. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved 24 August 2021Collar, N. (2020). Gartered Trogon (''Trogon caligatus''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, B. K. Keeney, P. G. Rodewald, and T. S. Schulenberg, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.gartro1.01 retrieved 20 October 2021

Description

Most trogons have distinctive male and female plumages, with soft, often colorful, feathers. The gartered trogon is long and weighs . The nominate male's head, neck, and upper breast are a violet-blue. The face and throat are black with a pale yellow ring around the eye. A narrow white band separates the upper breast from the bright yellow lower breast and belly. The upperparts are metallic green. The tail's upperside is violet-blue with black feather tips; the underside has fine black and white bars and broad white feather tips. The wings are mostly black with some whitish inclusions. The female's head and face, upper breast, and upperparts are gray; the eyering is not complete, the belly is a duller yellow than the male's, and the underside of the tail has a different pattern of black and white.

''T. c. sallaei'' has a blackish head and upper breast and a blue nape and lower breast. Its upperparts are a yellower green than the nominate's and the upper side of the tail is green. ''T. c. concinnus'' is similar to ''sallaei'' but its upperparts and tail are bluer.

Distribution and habitat

''T. c. sallaei'' is the northernmost subspecies of gartered trogon. It is found on the Caribbean slope of central Mexico and from the Caribbean and Pacific slopes of southern Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, and El Salvador into northern Honduras and possibly into Nicaragua. ''T. c. concinnus'' is found from Costa Rica through most of Panama into western Colombia, and separately from western Ecuador into northwestern Peru. The nominate ''T. c. caligatus'' is found from the Caribbean slope of Panama's Darién Province through northern Colombia into western Venezuela. It is a year round resident in Mexico but its movements elsewhere, if any, are unknown.

The gartered trogon is generally a bird of semi-open landscapes such as forest edges, clearings, gallery forest, secondary forest, and shaded coffee and cacao plantations. In Mexico it is also found in denser evergreen forest and rainforest. In elevation it ranges as high as in Central America but is generally more common in lowlands.

Behavior

Feeding

The gartered trogon usually feeds by hovering to pick fruit and invertebrates from vegetation. It diet includes a larger amount of fruit than most other trogons but also many types of insects and other invertebrates. It sometimes joins mixed-species foraging flocks.

Breeding

The gartered trogon's breeding season spans from March to June in Mexico, May to July in El Salvador, and February to June in Costa Rica. It nests in an wasp, ant, or termite arboreal nest or a hole in a rotten tree, with a typical clutch of two or three eggs.

Vocalization

The gartered trogon's song is "a long series of rapid hollow downslurred notes, ''kyu-kyu-kyu-kyu-kyu-kyu''". It also makes a "rolling chattering" call.

Status

The IUCN has not assessed the gartered trogon separately from violaceous trogon '' sensu lato''. It is fairly common to common in most of its range though very rare in Venezuela.

References

External links

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Further reading

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{{Taxonbar, from=Q1262495

gartered trogon
Birds of Mexico
Birds of the Sierra Madre Oriental
Birds of the Yucatán Peninsula
Birds of Central America
Birds of Colombia
Birds of Venezuela
Birds of Ecuador
gartered trogon
gartered trogon