The Golden Starfrontlet or Golden-tailed Starfrontlet (Coeligena bonapartei eos) is usuually considered a subspecies of hummingbird

Hummingbird

Hummingbirds are birds that comprise the family Trochilidae. They are among the smallest of birds, most species measuring in the 7.5–13 cm range. Indeed, the smallest extant bird species is a hummingbird, the 5-cm Bee Hummingbird. They can hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings...

 endemic

Endemic (ecology)

Endemism is the ecological state of being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, all species of lemur are endemic to the...

 to Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

. It is often considered a subspecies of the Golden-bellied Starfrontlet

Golden-bellied Starfrontlet

The Golden-Bellied Starfrontlet is a species of hummingbird found in Colombia and a very small part of Venezuela....

, C. bonapartei.

Range and habitat

It is "fairly common" but local in "wet mossy montane forest and forest borders" in the Venezuelan Andes

Andes

The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...

 at altitudes from 1400 to 3200 meters (4600 to 10,500 feet). It migrates upward during the rainy season (May or June); the time of its return migration is not known.

Description

In appearance it strongly resembles the Golden-bellied Starfrontlet, though it is 0.1 gram heavier at 6.6 g and has a bill that is 3 mm shorter at 30 mm. This species is more golden-bronze overall and has a mostly rufous tail and secondary wing feathers.

Behavior

The Golden Starfrontlet is "hyperactive" even for a hummingbird. Individuals occur at low and medium heights, flying from one flowering plant to another along their established paths or "trap-lines", seldom behaving territorially. They take nectar by hovering and reaching up with their bills into long-tubed flowers such as Centropogon

Centropogon

Centropogon is a plant genus in the family Campanulaceae. In systems where the Lobeliaceae are recognized as distinct, Centropogon is placed there....

, Fuchsia

Fuchsia

Fuchsia is a genus of flowering plants that consists mostly of shrubs or small trees. The first, Fuchsia triphylla, was discovered on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1703 by the French Minim monk and botanist, Charles Plumier...

, and plants of the heath family

Ericaceae

The Ericaceae, commonly known as the heath or heather family, is a group of mostly calcifuge flowering plants. The family is large, with roughly 4000 species spread across 126 genera, making it the 14th most speciose family of flowering plants...

. They also catch

Hawking (birds)

Hawking is a feeding strategy in birds involving catching flying insects in the air. The term usually refers to a technique of sallying out from a perch to snatch an insect and then returning to the same or a different perch...

 flying insects by "helicoptering" in mid-air, glean

Gleaning (birds)

Gleaning is a term for a feeding strategy by birds in which they catch invertebrate prey, mainly arthropods, by plucking them from foliage or the ground, from crevices such as rock faces and under the eaves of houses, or even, as in the case of ticks and lice, from living animals. This behavior is...

 insects off leaves, and join mixed feeding flocks

Mixed-species feeding flock

A mixed-species feeding flock, also termed a mixed-species foraging flock, mixed hunting party or informally bird wave, is a flock of usually insectivorous birds of different species, that join each other and move together while foraging...

. They are quite willing to help mob small owl

Owl

Owls are a group of birds that belong to the order Strigiformes, constituting 200 bird of prey species. Most are solitary and nocturnal, with some exceptions . Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds, although a few species specialize in hunting fish...

s.

Systematics

The Handbook of the Birds of the World

Handbook of the Birds of the World

The Handbook of the Birds of the World is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. The series is edited by Josep del Hoyo, Andrew Elliott, Jordi Sargatal and David A Christie.So far, 15...

splits

Lumpers and splitters

Lumping and splitting refers to a well-known problem in any discipline which has to place individual examples into rigorously defined categories. The lumper/splitter problem occurs when there is the need to create classifications and assign examples to them, for example schools of literature,...

this species from the Golden-belled Starfrontlet on the basis of bill length and plumage. Others lump it with the Golden-bellied on the basis of the latter's subspecies C. bonapartei consita, which is intermediate in these characters.