Azure-Crowned Hummingbird

On March 21, 2026 we were in Antigua, Guatemala and I had a morning birding outing with a guide, Bobby, at La Finca El Pilar, a private nature reserve outside Antigua, which covers 543.6 acres. It covers an elevation between 5,249 feet and 7,874 feet. Near the bottom of the trail there are hummingbird feeders which we spent quite a bit of time at. Bobby would call out hummingbirds as they were at the feeders or nearby on vegetation, as I photographed away, but azure-crowned was not a hummingbird Bobby mentioned. 

I saw subspecies cyanocephala which is found from eastern and southern Mexico (south from southern Tamaulipas) to eastern Honduras and north-central Nicaragua. Males of the subspecies cyanocephala have a bright metallic blue crown and females a duller blue to greenish blue crown. The bills have a black maxilla and a dull pink mandible with a black outer third (easily seen in the illustration below). They have greenish bronze to bronze green rump, uppertail coverts and tail. The underparts are white with metallic bronze green sides to the breast and duller bronze green flanks. Immatures are similar to adults, but duller. 

I posted this photo on iNaturalist and identified it as a green-throated mountain-gem. ryanandrews disagreed and identified it as an azure-crowned hummingbird (he is the 9th highest identifier of azure-crowned hummingbirds with 80 identifications). Another person then disagreed, identifying it like I did, as a green-throated mountain-gem. Then ryanandrews sent a message to sabrewing, the highest (by far) identifier of azure-crowned hummingbirds with 477 identifications (number two is at 176) to weigh in. sabrewing did and agree it was a violet-crowned hummingbird. 

I went back and put my photo through Lightroom again, increasing the concentration of blue to see if it would jump out on the head a little bit more. It did, but not by much. The lighting was not great and my photo is not great and so I am a little bit at a loss. It could be an adult female that has a duller blue to greenish-blue crown, or an adolescent (maybe an adolescent female) that is duller. The Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Northern Central America gives a few clues to the identification. It notes the throat is white with a speckled border. That jumps out. It also notes that the blue crown is "visible in good light." It was definately not good light. Again, I appreciate iNaturalist which exposes the photos to others. If I'd been using ebird I would have put it down completely differently 

Illustration of ssp. cyanocephala from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World.