A male Green-crowned Brilliant hummingbird (Heliodoxa jacula) feeds at the lower elevations (about 1400 meters) of Bellavista Cloud Forest Reserve, near Quito, Ecuador, South America. It is a large robust hummingbird in the highlands from Costa Rica to western Ecuador. The male Green-crowned Brilliant is 13 cm long and weighs 9.5 g. It is mainly bronze-green with a glittering green crown, forehead, throat and breast. It has a white spot behind the eye, a small violet throat patch, white thighs, and a deeply forked blue-black tail. The female is 12 cm long and weighs 8 g. She differs from the male in that she has green-spotted white underparts, a white spot behind the eye and a white stripe below the eye, and a white-cornered shallowly-forked black tail.. Young birds resemble the adult of the same sex, but are duller, bronze-tinged below and have buff throats. This hummingbird feeds at the large inflorescences of Marcgravia vines, and at Heliconia and other large flowers. Unlike many hummingbirds, the Green-crowned Brilliant almost always perches to feed.
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