Bird
Bird
White-chested Emerald
Amazilia chionopectus
The White-chested Emerald is a common and confiding hummingbird found only on Trinidad within T&T, readily seen visiting garden flowers and forest edge blossoms with its gleaming white underparts contrasting against an iridescent green back.
The White-chested Emerald is a common and confiding hummingbird found only on Trinidad within T&T, readily seen visiting garden flowers and forest edge blossoms with its gleaming white underparts contrasting against an iridescent green back.
Identification
A small to medium hummingbird around 9 to 10 cm long, with a bright, iridescent bronze-green back and crown and clean white underparts extending from the chin to the belly, giving it a strikingly bicoloured appearance compared to many similarly sized hummingbirds. The bill is straight, medium length, and mostly black with a reddish base, and the tail is bronze-green, slightly forked.
Ecology
The White-chested Emerald defends feeding territories of flowering plants at forest edge, gardens, and cultivated land, feeding on nectar from a wide variety of flowering shrubs and trees and supplementing its diet with small insects taken in flight. It is one of the most frequently encountered hummingbirds in gardens and parks across Trinidad and readily visits feeders and ornamental flowering plants, making it a familiar bird to residents even outside natural habitat.
Status in T&T
Common across Trinidad in gardens, forest edge, and cultivated land, but notably absent from Tobago, where it does not occur. It is not threatened and is well adapted to human-modified landscapes. It is protected under the Conservation of Wildlife Act and is not a game species.
Threats
- No major threats; thrives in garden and cultivated habitat
