Cinnamon-rumped Trogon

The Cinnamon-rumped Trogon does not perfume itself with the famous spice, it owes its name to the colouration of its rump, Harpactes orrophaeus, from the Greek Orros which designates the sacrum or rump in ornithological language and Phaios which describes a brown colour. The Anglo-Saxons also gave a poetic name to the colour: Cinnamon-rumped trogon. A symphony of colours and contrasts: measuring 25 cm, the male has a black head, dark brown iris, the eye is surmounted by a perfectly coordinated cobalt-blue eyebrow with a beak extended with a horizontal skin excrescence of the same cobalt-blue. This cobalt trait that divides the black throat from the neck, also black, gives a strange aspect and an almost worrying smile for its prey! The chest is scarlet red while the belly is pale pinkish red, the scapulae, mantle and back are of a cinnamon colour that can pull towards golden yellow depending on the light. The anthracite coverts are vermiculated with very thin white horizontal lines and the remiges have white emarginations that are not always visible. The large central pair of upper rectrices is of the same cinnamon colour as the back and is barred with a black line at its end, from the front the bird shows white lower rectrices which often reveal the two pairs of external upper rectrices black. The Cinnamon-rumped Trogon is very close to Duvaucel's Trogon, with often the same distribution area, they are difficult to distinguish from each other, the Cinnamon-rumped Trogon is substantially larger, the blue mark above the eye is wider and shorter and its beak is stronger, the vermiculations of the Cinnamon-rumped Trogon are less close together than those of Duvaucel's Trogon, they seem more rough; finally Duvaucel's Trogon has a redder belly while the Cinnamon-rumped Trogon has a pink belly, the back is cinnamon for the Cinnamon-rumped Trogon while it turns red for Duvaucel's Trogon.The female has the blue-cobalt bill as well as the blue extension in the back of the bill; the brown iris is surrounded by a very thin blue orbital circle and also shows the same blue mark above the eye. The forehead, cheeks, and throat are brown-rust coloured, while the crown, nape, and parts below the blue projection of the bill's extension are dark brown-grey. The chest and belly are buff, the latter having a slightly yellower hue; the dark brown coverts have much wider buff vermiculations than the male's. The black remiges have white edges. The central rectrices of the upper tail are Cinnamon-rumped Trogon, often showing the black of the outer rectrices, and the lower rectrices are white with greyish-black central parts. The tarses are blue-grey in both sexes. The female Duvaucel Trogon has no brown-rust cheeks, the head and throat are duller, the back is slightly more reddish, the rump is rosier, and the belly more reddish. Juveniles, closer to their mother's colouration, are light brown on the mantle and buff on the chest and belly; the males' vermiculations are coarser, they will get finer with age. Two subspecies are recognized, ssp. orrophaeus orrophaeus in the Thai and Malay Peninsulas, and ssp. vidua in Borneo, which is barely different, the coverts having less vermiculation, the chest less reddish, and more rusty-light; the female is more reddish on the head and the vermiculations are wider.