Gartered trogon


The gartered trogon, also known as the northern violaceous trogon, is a near passerine bird in the trogon family, Trogonidae. It is found in forests in east-central Mexico, south through Central America, to north-western South America. It was formerly treated as a subspecies of the violaceous trogon.

Behavior

It nests in a wasp, ant or termite nest or a hole in a rotten tree, with a typical clutch of two or three white eggs.
Gartered trogons feed on insects and small fruit, and their broad bills and weak legs reflect their diet and arboreal habits. Although their flight is fast, they are reluctant to fly any distance. They typically perch upright and motionless.

Description

Most trogons have distinctive male and female plumages, with soft, often colourful, feathers. The gartered trogon is a relatively small species at about in length. The head and upper breast of the male are blue and the back is green, becoming bluer on the rump. A faint white line separates the breast from the orange-yellow underparts. The undertail is white with black barring, and the wings are black, vermiculated with white. The complete eye-ring is yellow. The female violaceous trogon resembles the male, but has a dark grey back, head and breast, and an incomplete white eye-ring.
The shade of the blue of the head in the male differs between the violaceous trogon and the gartered trogon, but the voice is the main distinction between the two. The gartered has a slurred whistled cuh-cuh-cuh, and violaceous has a soft cow cow, cow.