Ward's trogon (''Harpactes wardi'') is a species of bird in the family Trogonidae. Its range includes the northeastern parts of the Indian subcontinent stretching eastwards to Southeast Asia. It is found in Bhutan, India, Tibet, and

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

. It also has a disjunct population in northern Vietnam, but there are no recent records from there. Its natural habitats are temperate forests and subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. It is threatened by habitat loss. Its common name and Latin binomial commemorate the English botanist and explorer

Francis Kingdon-Ward Francis Kingdon-Ward, born Francis Kingdon Ward OBE, (6 November 1885 in Manchester – 8 April 1958) was an English botanist, explorer, plant collector and author. He published most of his books as Frank Kingdon-Ward and this hyphenated for ...

Description

Ward's trogon measures in length and weighs . The male have a pink-red breast, belly, undertail and forehead and the chest, back and wings and uppertail are dark slate with a maroon wash. The tip of the bill is deep red. The plumage of the female matches the male but the red is replaced with yellow and the dark parts are dark olive. The female's beak tip is yellow, and both sexes have a blue ring around the eye.

Distribution and habitat

Ward's trogon ranges from Bhutan and Arunachal in North Eastern India and into northern and eastern Myanmar and southern China (in western Yunnan). A disjunct population was reported to be common in

Fan Si Pan Fansipan (Vietnamese: ''Phan Xi Păng'', ) is a mountain in Vietnam. The height of the mountain was in 1909, but now the height of the mountain is . It is the highest mountain in the Indochinese Peninsula (comprising Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) ...

in Vietnam in 1939, but there are no modern records of that species there. The species is generally montane, usually occurring between but occasionally coming down as low as . There is some evidence that it moves to lower altitudes in winter. The preferred habitat of Ward's trogon is subtropical hill forest dominated by '' Quercus'' and '' Castanopis'' and temperate broadleaf evergreen forest. Within these forests it is found in the understory, undergrowth and within bamboo stands. The species is not a common one, although it can be locally common in some locations. It was treated as vulnerable by 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 ...

in the 1990s, but secure populations have been found in Bhutan, so it is presently listed as near-threatened.

Behaviour

Little is known about the behaviour of Ward's trogon. It feeds on insects, including moths, stick-insects, grasshoppers and bugs, as well as large seeds. Its nests have not been found or described, but birds in breeding condition have been found in March and April.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1259010

Ward's trogon Ward's trogon (''Harpactes wardi'') is a species of bird in the family Trogonidae. Its range includes the northeastern parts of the Indian subcontinent stretching eastwards to Southeast Asia. It is found in Bhutan, India, Tibet, and Myanmar. It ...

Birds of Bhutan Birds of Northeast India Birds of Yunnan

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot