The slaty flowerpiercer (''Diglossa plumbea'') is a passerine bird endemic to the Talamancan montane forests. This is a common bird in mountain forest canopy and edges, and especially in sunlit clearings and areas with flowering shrubs, which can include gardens. The lower altitudinal limit of its breeding range increases from 1200 m in the north of Costa Rica to 1900 m in the southern mountains. It is found well above the timberline in

páramo Páramo () can refer to a variety of alpine tundra ecosystems located in the Andes Mountain Range, South America. Some ecologists describe the páramo broadly as "all high, tropical, montane vegetation above the continuous timberline". A narrower ...

habitat. The large cup nest, built by the female, is made of coarse plant material and lined with fine fibres. It is placed 0.4 to 4 m up in a dense shrub, grass tussock or pine. The clutch is two brown-speckled pale blue eggs, which are incubated by the female alone for 12–14 days to hatching. The slaty flowerpiercer has an upturned bill with a hooked upper mandible and pointed lower mandible. It is 10 cm long and weighs 9 g. The adult male is blue-grey with a lead-grey throat and breast. The tail and wings are blackish with grey feather edges. The female is olive-brown above with a paler throat and breast shading to buff on the belly. Young birds are like the female but have two tawny wing bars and faintly streaked buff-yellow underparts. The slaty flowerpiercer has a thin ''tsip'' call. The male's song consists of a mixture of whistles, warbles and trilled notes, ''see-chew see-chew see-chew seer seer surrzeep, tsee tsew tsink tsink tsink''. As its name implies, the slaty flowerpiercer pierces the base of the flowers of shrubs and

epiphyte An epiphyte is an organism that grows on the surface of a plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphytes grow are called phoroph ...

s with its bill and extracts the nectar through the hole with a brush-like tongue. It also feeds on tiny insects taken from foliage or in flight. It is attacked by territorial

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 ...

s defending their feeding areas, and then retreats to dense cover.

Taxonomic note

This species was formerly placed in the family

Coerebidae The bananaquit (''Coereba flaveola'') is a species of passerine bird in the tanager family Thraupidae. Before the development of molecular genetics in the 21st century, its relationship to other species was uncertain and it was either placed with ...

with the

bananaquit The bananaquit (''Coereba flaveola'') is a species of passerine bird in the tanager family Thraupidae. Before the development of molecular genetics in the 21st century, its relationship to other species was uncertain and it was either placed with ...

and

honeycreeper The typical honeycreepers form a genus ''Cyanerpes'' of small birds in the tanager family Thraupidae. They are found in the tropical New World from Mexico south to Brazil. They occur in the forest canopy, and, as the name implies, they are specia ...

s. It has sometimes been considered to be conspecific with the

cinnamon-bellied flowerpiercer The cinnamon-bellied flowerpiercer (''Diglossa baritula'') is a species of bird in the family Thraupidae. It is found in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist montane forests and he ...

, ''D. baritula''.

Gallery

Image:SlatyFlowerPiercerNest.JPG, center, Nest of slaty flowerpiercer in Chiriqui Mountains, Panama

References

* Stiles and Skutch, ''A guide to the birds of Costa Rica'', {{Taxonbar, from=Q1301481 slaty flowerpiercer Birds of the Talamancan montane forests Páramo fauna slaty flowerpiercer