Bird of the month: Bare-necked Umbrellabird

The Bare-necked Umbrellabird (Cephalopterus glabricollis) is an impressive and scarce cotinga endemic to Costa Rica and Panama. It inhabits very wet montane forests, mostly of the Caribbean slope, above 800 meters during its breeding season, but then descends to adjacent foothills and lowlands to 50 meters (there is also an old record from coastal Bocas del Toro province in western Panama) where they are segregate by sex and age. The breeding season extends from march to june in Costa Rica, but in Panama is described from april to september. However, many recent reports of august and september are from outside its breeding grounds (like my own reports here and here) and, in the other hand, you can find at least one photo of a male umbrellabird exhibiting its scarlet throat sac in a place known as an historical breeding site during january (check Euclides Campos' photo in this report to XENORNIS). According to Birdlife International, its is classified as VULNERABLE, and its main threat is habitat loss, specially in its non-breeding grounds. A complete species account is found at the BirdLife International website. For these, and many other reasons, is why we choose the Bare-necked Umbrellabird as our bird of the month.Literature consulted:

1. Ridgely RS, Gwynne JA. A Guide to the Birds of Panama. 1993.

2. Angehr GR, Engleman D, Engleman L. Where to find birds in Panama. 2006.

3. Garrigues R, Dean R. The Birds of Costa Rica. 2007.

4. BirdLife International. http://www.birdlife.org/

5. Xenornis. http://www.xenornis.com/