Orange-Breasted Fruiteater

On March 18, 2022 I visited the Mashpi Amagusa Reserve outside Mindo, Ecuador and had an extraordinary morning of birding, probably the most amazing of my life. One of the more bizarre birds I encountered was the orange-breasted fruiteater. I recorded it on iNaturalist as a green and black fruiteater. But the top identifier of orange-breasted fruiteaters on iNaturalist, Isueza, who has 107 identifications of it compared to the next highest identifier at 47, disagreed and identified it as an orange-breasted fruiteater. I checked it out and determined that he was right, it is a female orange-breasted frutieater.

Males have a glossy black head and bib, an orange throat and yellow belly with green mottling. The female has green upper parts and green and yellow streaked underparts. Both have yellow eyes, an orange bill and gray-green legs. 

Illustration of a female from Birds of the World.

Illustration of a male from Birds of the World. 

It is found on the slopes and foothills of the western side of the Anders in Colombia and Ecuador in the dense, wet, mossy forests. 

Range from Birds of the World.