Buff-winged Starfrontlet - BirdForum Opus

Female
Photo by firecrest15
Guango Lodge, eastern Andes, Ecuador, April 2015

Identification

Immature
Photo by Sylvester_b
Ecuador, October 2005

14 cm (5½ in)

South America: found in the central Andes of Colombia to Ecuador and extreme north-western Peru.

Two subspecies are recognized^[1].

Central Andes of Colombia, and the east slope of the Andes of Ecuador and extreme northwestern Peru (north and west of the Marañón Valley in Cajamarca and adjacent eastern Piura)

West slope of the Andes of northwestern Ecuador (Carchi south to northern Bolívar)

Photo by kitefarrago
Guango Lodge, Napo Province, Ecuador, July 2016

High elevation temperate (cold and wet) rainforest reserve with pasture.

Their diet consists mostly of nectar with the addition of arthropods.

They lay 2 white eggs in a cup-shaped nest, which is built about 3 m above ground in a tree fork.

Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2022. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2022. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
Gill, F, D Donsker, and P Rasmussen (Eds). 2022. IOC World Bird List (v 12.2) DRAFT. Doi 10.14344/IOC.ML.12.2. http://www.worldbirdnames.org/
Avibase
Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved June 2015)
BF Member observations

BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Buff-winged Starfrontlet. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 3 May 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Buff-winged_Starfrontlet