Adult male Blue-backed Manikin

Sightings
This adult male Blue-backed Manikin Chiroxiphia pareola was seen in poor light along the Trace Gilpin Trail in the Tobago Forest Reserve and was one of four birds of this species which we saw along the trail. It was also quite distant from the camera therefore it is not a good photo of a very beautiful bird. It is however, one of Tobago’s avian highlights and worth adding to this collection for that reason.

Species
The adult male Blue-backed Manikin is mainly black with a bright blue back, a red crown and and pale orange legs. There are three subspecies and the subspecies endemic to Tobago, C. p. atlantica is larger and has more extensive red on the crown and blue on the back. It has been suggested that it represents a separate species, the Tobago Manakin, but no major authorities recognize this today.

Status and Distribution
Blue-backed Manakin is a species of least concern with a stable population in its range of almost 11 million square kilometres. It breeds in tropical South America, its range extending from Colombia and Tobago to south eastern Brazil. It is found in deciduous forests but not evergreen rainforests in southern Colombia, eastern Venezuela, the Guyanas, north east Brazil, the Amazon Basin in Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru; and in Tobago. A disjunct population exists on the coastal strip of south east Brazil, about 3000 km long. Blue-backed Manakin is absent in the nort hwest Amazon Basin, a region from central Venezuela to the southern border of Colombia. This manakin is a fairly common bird of dry and moist deciduous forests.

References
BirdLife; Wikipedia; World Bird Names; Kenefick, M., Restall, R., and Hayes, F. (2015) Birds of Trinidad and Tobago, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 206.

Photograph
The photograph was taken at distance in poor forest light at 1/100th of a second, f5.6 and ISO 1250.