Fork-tailed Woodnymph / Vorkstaartbosnimf

Fork-tailed Woodnymph (Thalurania furcata)

Pictures (click on them to enlarge)
© Pieter Verheij	© Pieter Verheij	© N. Takano
© N. Takano	© John Muller	© Armida Madngisa nature guide
© Armida Madngisa nature guide	© Armida Madngisa nature guide	© Frank Valk
© Frank Valk	© Frank Valk	© Frank Valk
French Guiana © Matthias Fernandez	French Guiana © Michel Giraud-Audine

The male Fork-tailed Woodnymph is easily recognised, of course by its forked tail, but notice the beautiful deep blue belly (not so much on the photograph, helas). The female is much more difficult and can be taken for a Grey-breasted Sabrewing (as I first did, Rasmus Boerg helped with the identification, the Sabrewing has a white spot near its eye and has much more white on its tail). They are mostly seen alone in the forest.
Two pictures of a female Fork-tailed Woodnymph were made by Pieter Verheij in Suriname in January 2005. Then a photo of a male and a female Fork-tailed woodnymph, made by N. Takano in August 2004 on Fungu island in the Ralleigh Falls nature reserve. This nature reserve lies within an enormous reserve of more than 1,000,000 hectare: the Central Suriname Nature Reserve (CSNR) with more than 500 species of birds. The next picture was taken by John Muller in March 2006 at the Ralleigh Falls nature reserve of a male woodnymph at a feeder. Armida Madngisa photographed a femle building the nest, the nest without and with eggs at the Kabalebo resort. Matthias Fernandez saw a young bird being fed by its parent near Saut Mapaou in September 2013 and Michel Giraud-Audine saw the back of his bird in January 2014 at Sable d ór In French Guiana.
Dominiek Plouvier made video of a female cleaning her self.

Video (click the link or the 'play'-button to see)
Video recording of a Fork-tailed Woodnymph © ;

Distribution

Each small square indicates the observation of at least one (group) of these birds, the medium ones at least four observations on different days and the largest ones ten or more. The color of each square indicates: blue for coastal area, yellow for savanna and red for rainforest.
Not all places in Suriname have been equally often visited by birders, so the distribution of the squares gives an indication of the whereabouts of the birds, but also of the birders. Some places deep in the south have no reported bird observations, by experienced birders, within 60 kilometer.

Abundance in different areas
coastal zone (blue dots on the map) :
northern savannas (yellow dots (in the north)) :
rainforest under 400 m (red dots) :
rainforest above 400 m (red dots) :
Sipaliwini savanna (yellow dots (in the south)) :
A blank is shown if not convincingly reported in the zone. Data interpreted by Arie Spaans, Otte Ottema and Jan Hein Ribot.

Names
Scientific name:	Thalurania furcata
Order:	Apodiformes
Family:	Trochilidae, 35 in Suriname
Dutch:	Vorkstaartbosnimf
English:	Fork-tailed Woodnymph
Sranan ('Surinamese'):
Guyana:
Papiamento:
Spanish (Venezuela):	Tucusito moradito
Portugese (Brazil):	Beija-flor-tesoura-verde
Arowak:
Carib:
French:	Dryade à queue fourchue

Observations through the year	Observations of breeding through the year

The 403 reported observations of this bird in Suriname, mainly for the last 50 years up to 2018, have been grouped by month. More birds on one day are counted as one observation. Of course, if the graph should depict the total number of birds seen, the differences between the months could be much more pronounced.	The 1 reported breeding observations of this bird in Suriname. Most observations are about nest with eggs, some about fledglings, or feeding at a nest or the building of a nest. Of the about 5000 nests and eggs found for all species together, about 1/3 comes from the egg collection of Penard between 1896 and 1905. For some reason most collecting then was done in the first half of each year, so the shown distribution does not necessarily reflect the actual breeding preferences. The main dry season in Suriname is reckoned to be from half August to the end of November, the main wet season from half April to half August, but the the timing of begin and end does vary from year to year. Around March a second dry season often occurs.

Observations through the year

Observations of breeding through the year

The 403 reported observations of this bird in Suriname, mainly for the last 50 years up to 2018, have been grouped by month. More birds on one day are counted as one observation. Of course, if the graph should depict the total number of birds seen, the differences between the months could be much more pronounced.

The 1 reported breeding observations of this bird in Suriname. Most observations are about nest with eggs, some about fledglings, or feeding at a nest or the building of a nest.

Of the about 5000 nests and eggs found for all species together, about 1/3 comes from the egg collection of Penard between 1896 and 1905. For some reason most collecting then was done in the first half of each year, so the shown distribution does not necessarily reflect the actual breeding preferences.
The main dry season in Suriname is reckoned to be from half August to the end of November, the main wet season from half April to half August, but the the timing of begin and end does vary from year to year. Around March a second dry season often occurs.

Last update: September 2024 by Jan Hein Ribot. Please mail your comments, photos to: jhribot ( residing at ) gmail (point!) com.
observations can be uploaded to suriname.observation.org or ebird.org ).