Santa Marta Sabrewing Campylopterus phainopeplus Scientific name definitions

This large, glittering green hummingbird is endemic to the Santa Marta Mountains, in northeast Colombia, where it is locally fairly common on the southeast and northern slopes, although most of the recent records are from sites in the former area. The Santa Marta Sabrewing is an altitudinal migrant. During the dry season (February–May) it occurs at humid forest borders at 1200–1800 m, where it favors banana flowers in shade coffee plantations, but in the wet season (June–October) the species moves into open páramo almost as high the snowline at 4800 m. It is still unclear when and where the Santa Marta Sabrewing breeds. This sabrewing, which is considered to be globally Endangered, is suspected to be enduring an ongoing decline, given moderate habitat destruction and fragmentation, and elevational migrants of this nature obviously present special problems for their conservation.

NE & S slopes of Santa Marta Mts, in N Colombia.

Takes nectar and insects; no specific food plants recorded, except flowering banana (Musa); territorial.

Voice described as a plaintive double “twit-twit”, both in flight and display (1 Hilty, S. L., and W. L. Brown (1986). A Guide to the Birds of Colombia. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, USA. Close ).

ENDANGERED. CITES II. Previously considered Near Threatened. Restricted-range species: present in Santa Marta Mountains EBA. Locally common but restricted in range. Readily accepts man-made habitats like banana plantations. Most of distributional range cannot be visited safely resulting in lack of life-history data.