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Thick-billed Euphonia | Euphonia laniirostris
Dikbekorganist | Eufonia piquigruesa
The Thick-billed Euphonia is a euphonia of semi-open country, forest edges and gardens in the south of the guide area. The male is blue-black above and entirely yellow below, and has a slightly heavier bill than related species. Its song contains many imitated calls of other birds.
Voice
Strikingly varied: the song is a long, rapid series of whistles, chirps and imitated calls of other birds. Calls include a clear, rising chweet and a repeated peet-peet.
Recording: Juan Freile — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
10–11 cm. Stocky, with a relatively thick, short bill and a short tail. Male: upperparts and sides of head glossy blue-black; forecrown yellow to just behind the eye. Throat and entire underparts, including the undertail coverts, bright yellow to ochre-yellow; outer tail feathers with white on the underside. Female: upperparts olive-green, underparts fairly uniform yellowish olive, slightly paler yellow in the centre. Young males are at first female-like, with the first blue-black feathers on the back.
Confusion species
Yellow-throated Euphonia Euphonia hirundinacea is hardly separable from Thick-billed in the field and overlaps with it locally in Costa Rica and western Panama; its bill is slightly slimmer and the female has a distinct greyish-white belly centre. Yellow-crowned Euphonia Euphonia luteicapilla and White-vented Euphonia Euphonia minuta have a dark throat; Spot-crowned Euphonia Euphonia imitans also has a dark throat and a smaller, dark-spotted yellow forecrown.
Habitat
Forest edges, secondary forest, semi-open country with trees, shade plantations, orchards, parks and gardens; also riparian forest and the edges of dry forest. Mainly in the lowlands and lower hills, up to about 1500 m. It lives in pairs or small groups and feeds mainly on mistletoe berries and small fruit.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
In the guide area in Costa Rica, mainly on the Pacific side and in the Central Valley, and throughout Panama. Outside the guide area widespread in South America, from Colombia and Venezuela to Peru, Bolivia and western Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Thick-billed Euphonia is often first noticed by its song full of imitated sounds; an unexpected call from a treetop is worth checking for a small yellow-and-black bird.
Conservation status
Not threatened (LC). Common and tolerant of human-modified landscapes. Trapped as a cage bird in parts of its range.
Scientific name
Euphonia laniirostris | d'Orbigny, ACVMD & de Lafresnaye, 1837
D'Orbigny, ACVMD & de Lafresnaye described the species in 1837 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Euphonia was introduced in 1806 by Desmarest, A-G. Euphonia is Greek, from eu 'good' and phōnē 'sound': 'sweet-voiced', after the pleasing calls. laniirostris is Latin, from Lanius 'shrike' and rostrum 'bill': 'shrike-billed', after the thick bill. The specimen the first description was based on came from Yuracarés, Bolivia.