We were in Tikal NP in Guatemala with our guide, Rony, in an area thick with trees. Rony heard the call of a squirrel-cuckoo and was trying to find it. He'd walked up the trail a ways and while I waited I noticed a bird sitting motionless and quietly in the top of a tree. I took a few photos and showed them to Rony when we re-connected, and asked him what it was? He looked closely and then said he thought it was a squirrel cuckoo, but perhaps was an adolescent. I've posted it on iNaturalist and one identifier has confirmed it, the number 4 identifier of common squirrel-cuckoos with 808 identifications.
There are 13 subspecies. Those west and north of the Andes have greenish-yellow eye-rings and those east and south of the Andes have red eye-rings. Northern populations have shorter tails. I saw ssp. thermophila, also known as the "Middle American" common squirrel-cuckoo. It is found in eastern Mexico (eastern San Luis Potosi and southern Tamaulipas south to Veracruz, Yucatan and the Isthmus of Tehuantapec, south through Central America to Panama and northwestern Colombia. AI notes that the differences of an adolescent from an adult are: (a) adolescents have a grayish bill, instead of a yellow or yellow-green bill; (b) they have a gray eye-ring instead of a red or yellow-green eye-ring; (c) the tail feathers are narrower and less pointed (this is particularly evident); (d) the plumage is more lax, fluffy and shaggy; and (e) the throat is grayer, not as rich in color as the adult's chestnut throat.
 |
| Range from Birds of the World. |
No comments:
Post a Comment