FAMILY COKRKBIDAE 



the rest of Panama and into Colombia and Venezuela. It inhabits gar- 

 dens, shrubby clearings, light woodland, and forest borders, wherever 

 there are flowers. 



The Bananaquit reaches the nectar of flowers by clinging to plants 

 and probing into the center of flowers it can reach, or by piercing the 

 corolla of deeper flowers. When flowers are scarce, as Leek (Living 

 Bird, 1971, p. 99) found during the wet season of 1968 on Barro 

 Colorado Island in the Canal Zone, Bananaquits may drive away hum- 

 mingbirds that are potential competitors. They also suck the juice from 

 berries and take small insects and spiders. The stomach of 1 collected 

 by E. A. Goldman at Portobelo, Colon, on May 26, 1911, contained a 

 caterpillar and the head of another 19%, head of a curculionid 1%, 

 hymenoptera 5%, arachnid remains 10%, other coleoptera 5%, frag- 

 ments of a partly digested starchy seed 60%. A Bananaquit caught at 

 Barro Colorado Island during the winter of 1968-69 weighed 8.9 g 

 (Leek, Bird-Banding, 1975, p. 203). Moynihan (Smiths. Misc. Coll., 

 vol. 143, no. 7, 1962, p, 63) found that on Barro Colorado Bananaquits 

 sometimes join mixed flocks, especially those containing Green Honey- 

 creepers (Chlorophanes spiza). 



The Bananaquit is a persistent singer, vocal all through the day and 

 all year long. In Panama, the song is an unmusical, high-pitched trill 



Figure 38. — Bananaquit, Mielero Platanero, Coereba flaveola. 



