Elegant Trogon
Trogon elegans
eBird describes the Elegant Trogon this way: Male has a red belly, a white band across the chest, and a shimmering green breast. From above, male has a green back, a black face with a red eyering, gray wings, coppery tail, and yellow bill. Female duller with white patch below eye and red restricted to undertail coverts; belly pale grayish-white. Both sexes rather plump with long squared-off tail. Often sits with protruding rump. Found in mountains and canyons with sycamore trees. Inconspicuous, sitting still for long periods of time while hunting for insects. Song is a series of descending barks. All About Birds provides this additional descriptive information about the Elegant Trogon: Many kinds of trogons live in tropical forests, but only one species regularly occurs in North America. Easily recognized by their metallic-green and rose-red colors, as well as their unusual stout-bodied, square-tailed profile, Elegant Trogons are a prized sighting for birders who visit southeastern Arizona. Early on spring mornings, their repetitive and resonating calls carry through the sycamore and oak forests that line canyon streams. Elegant Trogons are reliant upon woodpeckers to excavate holes in trees where they place their nests.
I saw my first Elegant Trogon on the morning of January 6, 2021, at Estero Llano Grande State Park in Weslaco, Texas. I had read that this bird was continuing to be seen in the area of some trails known as the Tropical Zone, near the Indigo blind. As I was walking and searching, I came across a small group of birders who were staked out on a specific area behind the Indigo Blind, looking for the Trogon. After about thirty minutes, we located a female Elegant Trogon, hiding deep in the grove of trees. It was difficult to get a good photograph, but I was able to get some that were good enough to identify the bird. For details of the trip that includes my visit to Estero Llano Grande State Park, look here. Here are a few of the photos I took that morning.
“Cool Facts” about the Elegant Trogon From All About Birds…
- Elegant Trogons are what’s called a “secondary cavity nester”—they put their nests in holes in trees, as woodpeckers do. But they don’t have the ability to make these holes themselves, so they are largely dependent on woodpeckers to excavate nest holes for them. Once the woodpecker has moved on, trogons (among many other secondary cavity nesting species) can move in. Elegant Trogons often use holes that were excavated by Northern Flickers or Acorn Woodpeckers.
- Trogon is a Greek word meaning “gnawer,” which refers to its insectivore diet and hooked bill.
- Trogons tend to nest in riparian vegetation, sometimes close to human activity. Trogon nests are regularly found near service trails, campgrounds, and picnic grounds, so if you go camping in the mountains of Arizona you might find you have a trogon nesting in your campsite.
- Elegant Trogons were first found in the Huachuca Mountains of Arizona in 1885. Half a century later, in 1939, a nest was discovered in Madera Canyon of the Santa Rita Mountains, and they have since been found in the Atascosas and Chiricahuas Mountains. Although there seems to be suitable habitat in several other mountain ranges, it’s likely that this species has not yet had the chance to disperse there.