Bird
Bird
Turquoise Tanager
Tangara mexicana
The Turquoise Tanager is a brilliantly coloured canopy bird of Trinidad's forest, its bright turquoise-blue head and body offset by a golden-yellow belly and black markings, making it one of the more eye-catching members of the tanager family found on the island.
The Turquoise Tanager is a brilliantly coloured canopy bird of Trinidad's forest, its bright turquoise-blue head and body offset by a golden-yellow belly and black markings, making it one of the more eye-catching members of the tanager family found on the island.
Identification
A small tanager around 13 cm long, with a bright turquoise-blue head, throat, and rump, black upperparts marked with turquoise edging, and a contrasting golden-yellow belly and undertail. The combination of turquoise, black, and yellow makes it one of the most colourful and readily identified tanagers in the region, distinct from the plainer species sharing its habitat.
Ecology
The Turquoise Tanager feeds on small fruit and insects, foraging actively in the forest canopy and at forest edge, frequently in small groups and often joining mixed-species foraging flocks with other tanagers and honeycreepers as they move between fruiting trees. It plays a role in seed dispersal through its frugivorous diet.
Status in T&T
Found in forest and forest edge across Trinidad. It is not threatened. It is protected under the Conservation of Wildlife Act and is not a game species.
Threats
- Forest clearance and fragmentation
