Jamaican Doctor Bird

The Doctor Bird, officially the red-billed streamertail (Trochilus polytmus), is Jamaica's national bird and one of the most spectacular hummingbirds in the world. Found only in Jamaica, it is distinguished by the male's extraordinarily long iridescent black tail feathers that can measure twice the body length, and a brilliant emerald green plumage that shifts color in different light. The common name 'Doctor Bird' is attributed to the bird's swallow-tail plume resembling the coat-tails of an old-fashioned doctor, or to the Jamaican folk belief that the bird could heal the sick.

In Jamaican folk tradition, the Doctor Bird is associated with the spirits of the dead and with good fortune. Some Jamaican traditions hold that the Doctor Bird is a spirit bird that cannot be captured or killed — anyone who attempts to harm it will suffer bad luck. When a Doctor Bird hovers near your window or enters your garden, it is understood as a sign of good fortune coming or the visit of an ancestral spirit checking on the family.

The Doctor Bird appears on Jamaican currency, in the Jamaican Coat of Arms, and has become one of the country's most important cultural symbols — representing the island's unique natural heritage, the quick-moving, joy-bringing energy associated with Caribbean culture, and the beauty of things that exist only in one specific, irreplaceable place on earth.