Porphyriops melanops bogotensis (Vieillot, 1819)

Castro-Vargas, Fernando, Cruz-Mendivelso, Yerson, Ortega-Chamorro, Darwin & Palacino-Rodríguez, Fredy, 2020, Birds from northeastern Bogotá Savannah, Cundinamarca, Colombia, Check List 16 (5), pp. 1375-1391 : 1386-1387

Porphyriops melanops bogotensis (Vieillot, 1819) Figure 9A–D

New records. Two individuals hiding in the aquatic vegetation of the wetland in ESNR on 07 December 2016. We recorded this species systematically in all samples since 14 December 2016.

Identification. Black chick with red beak; young brown body, darker towards the back, throat and chest.Adults with light green beak with blackish crown; head, back and su - pracaudal coverts of olive–brown colour; dark grey neck and chest; dark brown and white mottled flanks; abdomen and infracaudal coverts of white colour.

Remarks. During the study time we recorded 17 active nests with three to six eggs (40.8 mm × 28.8 mm). The nests were near to the water’s edge, hidden in the vegetations or floating in the water. Nest building material includes aquatic vegetation such as B. laevis , S. californicus , and Ciperus papirus Linnaeus, 1753 (Papyrus Sedge). Several individuals have been seeing diving and swimming as an escape strategy. This species has been locally categorized as endangered danger ( MADS 2017). In Bogotá and its surrounding, populations are threatened by urbanization and loss of habitat ( Stiles et al. 2017). Conservation strategies for this species require alternatives such as those followed in the reserves under study, including the construction of artificial wetlands, where some populations appear to survive on the banks of the Bogotá River ( Stiles et al. 2017).

Distribution. Center Colombia, northeastern and southwestern Brazil, southern Bolivia, northern Paraguay, eastern Argentina and Chile.