WC’s photos of this delightfully named, spectacular species don’t begin to do the bird justice. But this species’ foraging behavior is like a Ruby-crowned Kinglet’s – hyperactive, constant motion – except that it’s in the middle and upper canopy. This bird, for example, was almost straight overhead. It’s a challenge.
The Brassy-breasted Tanager sports a blue mask, a green and black back, a yellow belly and the brassy-colored chest that gives the species its common name. It occupies a narrow band along the Atlantic mountains of Brazil, mostly within an elevational range of 800-1,800 meters. As WC has noted in discussion of other tanagers of this area, the habitat is almost destroyed, with just 7% of the native forest left, and much of that badly fragmented. But the Brassy-breasted has, at least to some extent, adapted to all but the worst kind of human disturbance, and possibly adapted to climate change by moving higher up the mountain slopes where human disturbance is somewhat lessened.
Within that range, it forages mostly on fruit and berries, and to a lesser extent insects and seeds. It feeds while perched, not hawking bugs in the air. But “perched” doesn’t mean holding still; rather, Brassy-breasted maneuver around leaves along thin branches, hopping from one branch to another, very active and nimble. Usually it is part of a small flock of Brassy-breasteds; only occasionally is it seen in mixed flocks with other species.
The nests of the Brassy-breasted Tanager is a deep cup, similar to that produced by many other species of tanager, and are well- lined. Its nests are most commonly found near the far end of a branch. Female Brassy-breasted Tanagers typically build the nest, but males assist in gathering nesting material. Brassy-breasted Tanager usually have a clutch of three eggs. Incubation lasts an average of 12-13 days, and is performed solely by the female; the male occasionally feeds the incubating female. There’s no other published data on breeding or survivorship. The total population is not known.
Rather than simply reporting what IUCN has to say about the status of this species, WC wants to show how the conclusion is made. The size of the range is a consideration. Brassy-breasted Tanagers have a range of 175,000 – 200,000 square kilometers. Not huge, but decent sized, and far above the criterion of less than 20,000 sq. km. combined with a declining or fluctuating range size, habitat extent or quality, or severe fragmentation). The population trend appears to be stable, and hence the species does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend criterion of more than 30% decline over ten years or three generations. The population size has not been quantified, but it is not believed to approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population size criterion of less than 10,000 mature individuals with a continuing decline estimated to be greater than 10% in ten years or three generations. Of course, those numbers mask the reality that at best the current population is at best a semi-educated guess. Still, those are the reasons Brassy-created Tanager is evaluated as a species of Least Concern.
For more bird photographs, please visit WC’s bird photo site, Frozen Feather Images.
Wickersham's Conscience 
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