17292: jhudicourt: Re: 17282: Jay: Re: 17277: Fuller: question on "Colobri" (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JHUDICOURTB@aol.com

"Colobri, the original creole, is the name of a tiny bird with green
plummage seen in the fields in Haiti. It is a bit bigger than a hummingbird.
Why
someone is given the nickname of Colobri or colibri I do not know. I must say
that
during my trips to Haiti for the last twenty years or so, I haven't seen a
single one of these birds. Like everything else in Haiti, decent humans
included, it has become a disappearing species if not completely extinct."

Yes, the bird you describe seems to be the Haitian Colibri althought the name
is used for various variety  hummingbirds in other islands.  I see these cute
small green and red Kolibri regularly in Haiti in Freres where my family
resides.  I usually see one sitting  still on a branch of the Acacia tree
(bayawonn with yellow flower) right outside our galeri.  In our neighborhood there is
a large piece of unbuilt fenced land with a Rak Bwa, a small undisturbed
forest which grew when the wall got built. Where there are trees there are birds.
We often see doves (toutrel), turtledoves (zotolan), red headed woodpeckers
(sepantye) and of course hummingbirds.  Some others birds are there less often
including a very large and very loud bird, like a small turkey identified by the
local people as rele or poul ajoli.  Recently I think I saw some yellow
finches and some Kat je.  The kids say that someone in the area recently killed an
owl, and I have certainly seen fights between Malfini and Pipirit while I was
sitting on the galeri.
In reference to the Kolibri, a book by James Bond, called Birds of the West
Indies says
it is  a Broad-billed Tody (Todus subulatus), found primarily in lowlands,
but ranges up to 5,000 feet in the mountains.  Most numerous in semi-arid
localities, not found in dense rain forest.  Range:   Hispaniola and Gonave Islands.
So as to the people who identify the Kolibri as a hummingbird, the same book
does refer to some varieties of hummingbirds with the same name but in other
islands of the Carribean.  So the Kolibri is still living in Haiti.  I am no ex
pert but I think that to see birds you have to go where they are and in the
right season.  It seems to me that there are much fewer visible birds in the
very dry season, (february to April).