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White-necked Puffbird | Notharchus hyperrhynchus
Witnekbaardkoekoek | Buco cuelliblanco | Macuru-de-testa-branca
The White-necked Puffbird is the largest puffbird of the guide area, a black-and-white bird with a heavy bill that sits high in the canopy. It often stays for hours on the same bare branch above the forest or at a forest edge. It was formerly treated as one species together with Guianan Puffbird.
Voice
Fairly quiet. The song is a long, high, rather weak trill or series of rapid whistles, sometimes slightly falling; also soft, plaintive whistles.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
24–26 cm, with a large head and a very heavy, hook-tipped black bill. The crown, eye area, back, wings and tail are black. A broad white forehead continues into a broad white collar. The throat and underparts are white, with a broad black breast band; the flanks are barred black. The sexes are alike; juveniles are duller, with buff tones on the underparts.
Confusion species
Pied Puffbird Notharchus tectus is much smaller, with a narrow white eyebrow, a white scapular stripe and white spots in the tail. Black-breasted Puffbird Notharchus pectoralis lacks the white forehead, has a white cheek patch and a broader black breast; it lives only in western Colombia and north-western Ecuador. Brown-banded Puffbird Notharchus ordii is smaller, with a brown band below the black breast band. Guianan Puffbird Notharchus macrorhynchos occurs outside the guide area and has a narrower white forehead.
Habitat
The canopy and edges of humid lowland forest, both terra firme and várzea, also open country with tall isolated trees, clearings and old secondary forest, up to about 1000 m, locally higher. It perches high on an open branch and sallies for large insects, spiders and small lizards. It nests in a cavity it excavates in a termite nest high in a 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 lowlands west and east of the Andes, including the Caribbean lowlands and the Magdalena Valley. In Ecuador in the western and eastern lowlands. In Peru in the Amazonian lowlands and the low Andean foothills. In Bolivia in the northern and central lowlands. Absent from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area from southern Mexico through Central America to Venezuela and western and central Amazonian Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Scan bare branches above the canopy and at forest edges from a canopy tower, a clearing or a river. Birds often sit in the same spot for a long time.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The range is very large; the species tolerates semi-open country with tall trees, but suffers locally from deforestation.
Scientific name
Notharchus hyperrhynchus | (Sclater, 1856)
Sclater described the species in 1856 as Bucco hyperrhynchus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Notharchus was introduced in 1863 by Cabanis & Heine. The genus name combines Greek nōthēs, 'sluggish', and arkhos, 'leader' or 'chief'. The species name hyperrhynchus comes from Greek huper, 'over, excessive', and rhunkhos, 'bill', after the large bill. The specimen the first description was based on came from Upper Amazon.