Grey-headed Chachalaca

Scientific Name: Ortalis cinereiceps

Range / Habitat: Tropical wet forest and forest edge lowlands and middle elevations throughout Central America.

Field Notes: Large, skulking bird with long, wide tail. Grey head with red gular area, brown body with rufous primaries. Often arboreal. Plain Chachalaca lacks rufous primaries.

Personal Notes: Seen at Arenal Nayara Hotel, Costa Rica.

Black Guan

Scientific Name: Chamaepetes unicolor

Range / Habitat: Found in tropical montane moist forest of Costa Rica and Panama.

Field Notes: Large, all-black bird with blue facial skin, red eye, and red legs.

Personal Notes: Seen at Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve in Costa Rica. We would never have seen this bird hidden right above us without our excellent guide, Carlos.

Crested Guan

Scientific Name: Penelope purpurascens

Range / Habitat: Year-round resident of both slopes of Mexico into Central America. Habitat is tropical lowland moist forest.

Field Notes: Large, fowl-like bird with long tail. Dark brown with white streaking, red eye and wattle, grey-blue mask and bill. Differentiated by Highland Guan primarily by habitat.

Personal Notes: Seen at the Tikal ruins in Guatemala.

Great Curassow

Scientific Name: Crax rubra

Range / Habitat: Fragmented distribution in lowland rainforest throughout southern Mexico, Central America, and into northern South America.

Field Notes: Large, fowl-type bird, most commonly seen on the ground. Male all black. Female black and brown. Curly crown feathers in both sexes unmistakable.

Personal Notes: As is evident from the blurry photo above, we caught a fleeting glimpse of a group of these birds while leaving Tikal in Guatemala.

Plain Chachalaca

Scientific Name: Ortalis vetula

Range / Habitat: Resident throughout eastern coast of Mexico, Yucatan, and into Central America. Favors lowland shrub and forest. 

Field Notes: Large, noisy fowl-like bird often found in trees. Overall brown with long, broad tail. Face is grey and red gular stripe sometimes apparent. Grey-headed Chachalaca with bright rufous primaries. 

Personal Notes: A surprisingly shy bird for its size and the amount of noise it makes.