Bar-tailed Trogon

The Bar-tailed Trogon (scientific name Apaloderma vittatum, English name Bar-tailed Trogon) is a conciliatory trogon. George Ernest Shelley (1840-1910), an English ornithologist, discovered it in 1882 in Tanzania. Ornithology leading to everything, it is important to know that he was the nephew of Mary Shelley who wrote the famous novel Frankenstein. The Bar-tailed Trogon is 27 cm long and, like all trogons, has a very marked dimorphism. The male has a pale yellow beak, with a brown iris topped by a thin yellow eyebrow line, and below the eye two orange marks in line with the beak, and at the parotid area are characteristic of the species. The head has an indeterminable black coloration! The parotids and nape are rather black, the forehead is dark green bordering on black, the throat is dark blue-coal passing to green-bronze on the upper chest and a blue-ultramarine band separates the chest from the bright red belly. The mantle and back are emerald green, the small and medium wing coverts keep the green background of the back and are "spotted" with small black and white waves, the large coverts and remiges show black and white vermiculations, a characteristic mark of most trogons. The black primary remiges are outlined in white at the margins. The central rectrices are purple-gray and the three pairs of external rectrices are white with horizontal black lines. The female keeps the same yellow beak, with a slightly grayish culmen, and the male's orange marks; the head is chestnut brown, the parotids are dark brown. The chest is chestnut brown to lighten to the belly which is faded red almost rose, the mantle and back take on the emerald green color of the male and the coverts are also vermiculated.The legs are pale orange. Juveniles have a dark brown head, the orange markings of the adult, below the eye and along the beak, are white, the chest is a patchwork of green, red and light brown spots, with age the red colouration of the belly will become more prominent.