Keel-Billed Toucan

While in Tikal NP in Guatemala we had just seen a flurry of birds in a small area: a lineated woodpecker, an olive-throated parakeet, a black-headed saltator and white-crowned parrots. Rony, our guide, pointed to a small speck standing on the limb of a very large tree, very far away, and said, "there is a keel-billed toucan." I took a photo, then enlarged it and could make it out. I would love to have seen it closer, but I'll take a toucan any way I can see one. I really love the toucans, barbets, parrots, parakeets and oropendolas - all colorful, many with large bills and loud calls. 

It is also known as the rainbow-billed toucan (for obvious reasons) and sulphur-breasted toucan and is the national bird of Belize. There are two subspecies. I saw the nominate ssp. sulfuratus which is found in southeastern Mexico, Belize and northern Guatemala. It has a very narrow red chest band below the yellow breast which is difficult to see. The other ssp. has a somewhat broader red band. 

Illustration from Birds of the World. What a spectacular bird.

Range from Birds of the World. 

I have previously seen the following toucans:

Chestnut-mandibled toucan near Mindo, Ecuador.

Choco toucan near Mindo, Ecuador.

Collared or pale-mandibled aracari near Mindo, Ecuador, maybe my favorite one. 

Crimson-rumped toucanet near Mindo, Ecuador.

This was my first toucan outside of Ecuador.

Orange-Breasted Falcon

When researching birds of Tikal NP I came across the orange-breasted falcon, a bird I'd never heard of. An AI overview indicated that Tikal was "one of the few known, reliable nesting sites for the rare and near-threatened" bird. Temple IV has a nesting site "making Tikal a premier location for spotting this raptor." I was looking forward to seeing Temple IV for that reason. I took a long distance photo of Temple IV and showed it to Rony, with a bird standing on top. He said it was a black vulture. As we hiked closer to Temple IV Rony pointed to a spot and told me to focus my lens to the left of the top. I did and couldn't see it. But I took a number of photos and then enlarged them looking for it. I was shocked when on one of the photos the falcon stood out much larger than I'd anticipated. As I got home and looked through my photos I realized that the reason this one stood out was because it was head up and looking toward me. 

It has a black head, bluish black upperparts and a paler blue-gray edge on the feathers. The throat and sides of the neck are white and the upper breast is rufous orange extending onto the side of the neck. The lower breast is black with reddish brown bars. The belly, thighs and undertail coverts are also rufous orange. The cere, the bare skin around the eye, the legs and feet are yellow to dull bluish green. 

Illustration from Birds of the World. 

The two range maps I show are very different from each other. This one is from Birds of the World. 

This one is from Wikipedia and shows a much sparser distribution in South America, but a larger distribution in Central America. It is only found locally throughout its range with most observations, like mine, from a few well-known nesting locations. It is not considered common anywhere, but its abundance and distribution are clouded by confusion with the very similar, but smaller, bat falcon. 

White-Crowned Parrot

Our birding guide in Tikal NP, Guatemala, Rony, was excellent at spotting birds. He pointed out something that I've not heard any other birding guide say, to the effect of, "Sometimes you just have to wait and let the birds come to you. Too often there is a feeling that you have to keep moving." Rony went to places he'd seen birds before, and waited around for them to arrive. I thought back to guided tours I've seen in Big Morongo where a guide just parks on a section of trail and seems to keep finding additional birds, while at the same time I'm itching to keep on moving and do so.

One of the few birds I saw on my own, and identified on my own, was a white-crowned parrot. I'd seen an illustration of it in the Peterson "Field guide to birds of Northern Central America" by Jesse Fagan and Oliver Komar. Interestingly, I saw it in a spot we'd stopped to watch other birds. 

The adult male has a white forehead, crown and throat. The rest of the head, neck and breast are dull dark blue. The belly is light green and the upper parts are dark green with a yellow-olive shoulder patch. It has a brown iris, a brownish-pink eye-ring and a bill that is yellowish with slight green. The female is similar, but the blue plumage fades into scaling on the lower breast and the shoulder patch is duller. 

Illustration from Birds of the World.

Range from Birds of the World. 

Ocellated Turkey

Probably the bird I most wanted to see in Tikal NP in Guatemala was the ocellated turkey. It has a very limited range, confined to portions of the Yucatan Peninsula,  northern and western Belize and northern Guatemala. Our guide, Rony, spotted it quite a distance ahead, walking through an occupied section of Tikal with wooden buildings and people wandering around. I got near and started taking photos and pretty soon we had a group of about 30 people behind us watching and taking photos. 

"Ocellus," or the plural form "ocelli," means "simple eye" or "eyespot." The tail feathers of this turkey are bluish-gray with a bright gold tip, with an eye-shaped blue-bronze spot near the end. The spots give the turkey its name. I think of the ocelot, a wild cat that is covered with spots, and now understand how it got its name. 

Note the blue-bronze eye-shaped spot near the end of the tail with a bright gold tip. 

The body feathers of both males and females are a mixture of bronze and green iridescent color. Females can be duller with more green, but the breast feathers do not generally differ and can't be used to determine the sex. The upper, secondary wing coverts are iridescent copper. The primary and secondary wing feathers have barring similar to North American turkeys, but the secondaries have more white. They have blue heads with orange or red nodules which are more pronounced on males. Males have a fleshy blue crown covered with nodules. During breeding season the crown swells up and becomes brighter and more pronounced in its yellow-orange color. The eye is surrounded by bright red skin which is most visible on males during breeding season. The legs are red. Males over a year old have spurs on the legs which are longer and thinner than on North American turkeys. They are smaller than North American wild turkeys. 

The blue head, fleshy blue crown covered with nodule and red skin around the eye. 

Spurs on the legs reveal it to be a male. 

Illustration of a female from Birds of the World. 

Illustration of a male from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World.

Such a crazy looking cool bird! A favorite. 

Black-Headed Saltator

This continues our morning in Tikal NP in Guatemala on March 19, 2026. Rony, our guide, spotted some green jays and I was having real difficulty getting a clear photo. I ultimately got enough lousy photos to make an identification, but again was surprised at the result. When I got home and submitted my photos to iNaturalist it identified the bird as a black-headed saltator and the buff-throated saltator was the only other option given, no green jay. So far there has been one verification of my iNaturalist identification. This was not due to bad light as the sun was fully out, but it was moving around a lot in thick trees. 

This is by far the best photo. 

It is a member of the tanager family. It has a slate-gray head with a white supercilium; yellowish green upperparts; pale gray underparts; a white throat edged with black; and a black bill.  

Illustration of the nominate ssp. atriceps from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World. I saw the nominate ssp. atriceps which is found on the Caribbean slope of Mexico from southern Tamaulipas, south (except for southeastern Veracruz and north and central Yucatan Peninsula) to eastern Costa Rica. 

Yellow-Throated Vireo

Continuing on from my last post, what I thought was going to be a sulphur-bellied flycatcher was a yellow-throated vireo. 

They yellow throat and white belly. 

Adults are mainly olive on the head and upperparts with a yellow throat and white belly and they have dark eyes with yellow "spectacles." The tail and wings are dark with white wing bars. They have thick blue-gray legs and a stout bill. 

Illustration from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World. They breed in southern Canada and the eastern U.S. and migrate to the deep southern U.S., Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America (where I saw it).  

Masked Tityra

This is a continuation of a trip into Tikal NP in Guatemala with our guide, Rony, on March 19, 2026, which starts two posts back. Another bird we saw early in the morning, in poor light, was a masked tityra. Rony told me there was a dusky-capped flycatcher and a sulphur-bellied flycatcher in the tree. I was photographing what I could tell was a whitish bird, which I assumed was the dusky-capped flycatcher, and another bird with a yellow breast which I assumed was the sulphur-bellied flycatcher. When I got home and downloaded my digital photos, lightened them up in Lightroom, and then submitted them to iNaturalist, I discovered that the whitish bird I'd photographed was a masked tityra and the bird with the yellow breast was a yellow-throated vireo (subject of my next post). I was surprised and happy, as both were lifers, as the dusky-capped flycatcher and sulphur-bellied flycatcher would also have been. However, this highlights one of the major reasons I really like iNaturalist, as compared to eBird. On eBird you self-identify a bird and report, often not including a photo. On iNaturalist you must submit a photo, get help in identifying it from the computer program, and then also have identifiers weighing in on the identification. If I'd just been doing an eBird observation, I would already have had three wrong identifications for the morning (including the gartered violaceous trogon of my last post which I'd been told was a black-headed trogon). This is not to throw any shade on Rony: there are about 400 species of birds in Tikal NP, it was very dark (I couldn't see colors very well), and it was a very thick jungle setting. Rony obviously knew the national park and was extraordinarily good in locating birds. 

The masked tityra male has bare rosy skin from the bill to and around the eye. It has a black forecrown and the black wraps behind and under the red skin. The rest of the head and upper parts are pale grayish white with a heavy pearly gray cast. The wings are mostly black with grayish white tertials. The tail is grayish white with a wide black band near the end. The throat and upper parts are whitish. Adult females have the same bare red skin, but without any black on the head and the head is a smoker gray than the male's. There are 9 subspecies of the masked tityra. I saw ssp. personata, found in eastern Mexico, from southwestern Tamaulipas to Campeche, and south through Belize, both sides of Guatemala, central and western Honduras, El Salvador and into north-central Nicaragua. The male ssp. personata, compared to the nominate ssp. semifasciata, has a grayish brown head and upperparts and is darker on the head. My photos are only catching the under parts. 

Illustration of nominate ssp. semifasciata from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World.