| The Elegant Trogon is perhaps the most beautiful of Mexican birds. The male has a shiny almost metallic blue-green head and upperparts and was formerly known as the Coppery-tailed Trogon. The underparts are red with a white band on the breast. The neck is rather thick and the bill is short and yellow.They have a long tail which is squared at the end. The females are brownish above and a dull pink on the underparts and have a white mark on the cheek behind the eye.
The habitat is the oak and pine-oak woodlands in arid and semi-arid canyons and where sycamores grow along flowing streams. In the United States it is only seen with regularly in southern Arizona and New Mexico near the Mexican border and can be found south to Costa Rica. The bird is unmistakable and on rare occasions is reported in other areas of the United States.
The young are silent and the pairs roost together in dense vegetation spending much of their time perched upright and motionless in a tree, sitting erect with their tails pointing downward. The adult call is a low clucking sound not unlike a female turkey. Males will compete with other birds for old flicker holes and use its call to defend the area around the nest. It will also will call the female from inside the nest during courtship. If the female enters the nest the bond is made.
The clutch consists of 3 or 4 white eggs laid in an abandoned woodpecker hole, 12 to 40 feet off the ground and often lined with feathers, moss, grass, straw or wool. Sycamore trees are their favored nesting spots. They have also been known to nest in holes along the banks of rivers or streams. The eggs are incubated by both parents for about 22 to 23 days. The male will incubate during the morning and afternoon while the female incubates midday and during the night. The young are cared for by both parents and leave the nest in about 3 weeks though they remain dependent upon their parents for a few more weeks. The young are dappled with white and do not have the long tails when they first begin to fly.
Feeding on a wide variety of insects including cicadas, walkingsticks caterpillars as well flying insects or small fruits which it may take in hovering flight. They will eat chokecherries and wild grapes in the summer and fall when insects are less abundant. They have also been known to eat small lizards.
Length 11 to 12 inches
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