All species › Gamebirds › Guans, curassows and chachalacas › Chestnut-winged Chachalaca
Chestnut-winged Chachalaca | Ortalis garrula
Roodvleugelchachalaca | Guacharaca caribeña | Aracuã-de-asa-castanha
The Chestnut-winged Chachalaca is endemic to northern Colombia, where it lives in the Caribbean lowlands. Groups are heard mainly in the morning with loud, rhythmic choruses that carry far through forest edges and along rivers.
Voice
A loud, rhythmic, grating chorus, often by several birds in alternation, recalling the Spanish name guacharaca; mainly at dawn and dusk.
Recording: A Edwar H Guarín — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
48–55 cm. The head and upper neck are rufous-chestnut, the back and wing coverts olive-brown, the breast grey-brown and the belly whitish. The primaries are chestnut and show in flight. The long tail is dark greenish with a white terminal band. There is a patch of bare red skin on the throat. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Colombian Chachalaca Ortalis columbiana, higher up in the Magdalena and Cauca valleys, has a grey head with pale scaling on the neck and breast and no chestnut primaries. Rufous-vented Chachalaca Ortalis ruficauda, further north-east, has a grey head and rufous undertail coverts. Grey-headed Chachalaca Ortalis cinereiceps, in the north-west, has a grey head and an olive-brown belly.
Habitat
Dry and humid forest, gallery forest, forest edges, scrub and mangrove edges in the lowlands, also around farms and in open country with copses; from sea level to about 800 m, locally higher. It lives in groups in the middle storey and canopy and eats fruit, leaves and flowers. The nest is a platform of twigs in a bush or tree.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia in the Caribbean lowlands, from the area of the Gulf of Urabá east to the foot of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and south in the lower Magdalena valley. Absent from Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. It does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Listen at dawn in forest edges and along rivers in the Caribbean lowlands of Colombia, for example at the foot of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, for the loud choruses. Groups often feed in fruiting trees along roads.
Conservation status
Listed as Least Concern. It tolerates clearance and fragmentation fairly well and also lives in land heavily altered by people; it is hunted locally.
Scientific name
Ortalis garrula | (Humboldt, 1805)
Humboldt described the species in 1805 as Phasianus garrulus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Ortalis was introduced in 1786 by Merrem. The genus name comes from Ancient Greek ortalis, 'pullet' or 'hen'. The species name comes from Latin garrulus, 'chattering', for the noisy calls. The specimen the first description was based on came from Río Magdalena, Colombia.