Red-legged Honeycreeper (Cyanerpes cyaneus)

Identification & Behavior: ~12.5 cm (5 in). The male Red-legged Honeycreeper has black upperparts. The rest is bright blue with a sky-blue cap. The female is greenish above with buff superciliary and no blue malar stripe. The throat is buffy and grades to a striped green and buff rest of the underparts. The legs in both sexes are bright red, more saturated in the male. It forages in the canopy of mature forest nearly always in the company of mixed species flocks. The very similar male Short-billed Honeycreeper has reddish legs and black throat and mantle. The female Short-billed Honeycreeper has green sides of the head and a small blue malar stripe. Also, see Purple Honeycreeper.

Status: The Red-legged Honeycreeper is uncommon to rare but widespread in Amazonia where it is known to range up to 600 m along the foothill of the Andes. It also occurs in Co, Ec, Br, and Bo.

Name in Spanish: Mielero de Pata Roja.

Sub-species: Red-legged Honeycreeper (Cyanerpes cyaneus dispar), J. T. Zimmer, 1942.  Colombia E of Andes (from Meta and R Negro–R Guainía region), NW Brazil (E to R Negro and R Juruá), E Ecuador (rare), and NE Peru (S to Yarinacocha).
(Cyanerpes cyaneus violaceus), J. T. Zimmer, 1942.  SE Peru, N Bolivia, and W Brazil (E to Mato Grosso).

Meaning of Name: Cyanerpes: Gr. kuanos= dark-blue and herpes, herpo= creeper, creeping, to crawl. cyaneus: L. cyaneus dark-blue, sea-blue, greenish-blue.

See more of the Family Thraupidae