The black-chinned mountain tanager is Choco-endemic, that is, limited to the Andean cloud forest found in a small sliver of Colombia and Ecuador. As I look it up I find several telling pieces of information. First, the entry in Wikipedia is a paragraph (less than 30 words, fewer words than I have written here thus-far). Second, the entry in eBird is a longer paragraph, but still a paragraph, with geographic information and photos. The four top photos were all taken in Mashpi, Ecuador, three of them where I also took my photographs, at Amagusa Reserve. This lack of information is not because it is not spectacular - it is - it just has very limited geographic presence.
It has a black head, neck, chin (which gives it its name), eye, beak, legs and feet. It has a golden-yellow crown-stripe, an orange-yellow breast and underparts, a greenish-yellow back, blue wings and tail of varying shades.
I find an article about it in The Guardian of October 10, 2011 which refers to it as the "Ecuadorian mystery bird" and points out that 60% of all tanagers are found in South America and 30% are found only in the Andes.
Blue and yellow are complementary colors, diametrically opposite on the color wheel, which makes them really pop. You really see that on this bird!
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