Scarlet-rumped cacique

The scarlet-rumped cacique (Cacicus microrhynchus) is a passerine bird species in the New World family Icteridae.

Distribution

 * C. m. microrynchus – Central America
 * C. m. pacificus – Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena

Description
The scarlet-rumped cacique is sexually dimorphic like many Icteridae, though it mainly concerns size in this species. Males are 23 cm long and weigh 68 g, while the female is 20 cm long and weighs 53 g; This cacique is a slim long-winged bird, with a relatively short tail, blue eyes, and a pale yellow pointed bill. It has mainly black plumage, apart from a scarlet patch on the lower back and upper rump. The female is smaller and a duller black than the male, and the juvenile bird has a brownish tone to the plumage and a brownish-orange rump.

The song of these birds is a pleasant wheee-whee-whee-whee-wheet, but the Pacific cacique has a descending melancholy wheeo-wheeo-wheeo-wheeo, while C. m. microrynchus in the narrowest sense has a burry pleeo; C. m. pacificus has a sweeter keeo or a shree.

Ecology and distribution
Unlike some other caciques they are not usually colonial breeders; like them they have a bag-shaped nest. It is built about 3.5 – above ground, in a tree which usually also contains an active wasp nest. The bird's nest is 36 – long, widens at the base, and is suspended from the end of a branch. The normal clutch is two dark-blotched white eggs. The male will assist in feeding the young, but does not incubate.