Short-tailed emerald

The short-tailed emerald is found in clearings and at borders of forest, woodland, open areas with scattered trees, and in coffee plantations at altitudes of up to 2,400 metres (7,900 ft) in the Andes of central Colombia to far western Venezuela. The bird has a wide range, estimated at 64,000 square kilometres.[1]

The global population and population trends have not been quantified. Although the species is described as 'uncommon' in parts of its range, it is not believed to be near the threshold for inclusion in the IUCN Red List (viz., the population is not thought to be fewer than ten thousand mature individuals, with numbers declining).[1]

The bird has an overall length of approximately 9 centimetres (3.5 in). The bill is straight, about 18 millimetres (0.71 in) long and black.[3]

The short-tailed emerald closely resembles several other members of the genus Chlorostilbon. While its tail is relatively short, a few other species from the genus have equally short tails (e.g. the green-tailed emerald). The male's bird's whole crown and belly are a solid glittering emerald green, with iridescence, the back a shining green, while the feathers of his short tail are a darker olive green. The female bird also has a shining green back, but her crown is nearer to brown in colour, while her underparts are grey, and she has a short white streak behind her eye. Her tail is pale green, with two central feathers of shining green and with an off-white tip and a blue-black subterminal band.[3]

There are two subspecies, the Santander emerald (Chlorostilbon poortmani euchloris) and the short-tailed emerald (Chlorostilbon poortmani poortmani).[4][5]

The short-tailed emerald is a frequent visitor to the nectar-rich, orange-red flowers of the Solanaceous shrub Streptosolen jamesonii - a fact reflected in one of the plant's common names in South American Spanish, namely flor de quinde ( = hummingbird flower), the word quinde being a borrowing into Spanish of the Quechua word for hummingbird quindi. The plant is native to Ecuador, Peru and Colombia but is also frequently grown elsewhere as an ornamental, its deep orange flowers having earned it the English name of marmalade bush.[6]

The English ornithologist John Gould depicts Poortman's emerald hummingbird in a lithograph dated 1860, from the neighborhood of Bogotá, Colombia, with a Victoria water lily against the background of a lake,[2] a juxtaposition which has been called "one of the most striking examples of a plant chosen for its fame and beauty rather than its appropriateness".[7]

• Gould, John, A Monograph of the Trochilidae or Humming Birds with 360 plates (volume 5, 1861)
• BirdLife International, Threatened Birds of the World (Lynx Edicions and BirdLife International, Barcelona, Spain and Cambridge, UK, 2000)
• BirdLife International, Threatened Birds of the World 2004 (CD-ROM, BirdLife International, Cambridge, UK, 2004)