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Three-wattled Bellbird | Procnias tricarunculatus
Drielelklokvogel | Campanero tricarunculado
The Three-wattled Bellbird is a large cotinga of montane forest and foothills in southern Central America. The male has a white head and breast, a chestnut body and three long black wattles at the base of the bill. Its loud, metallic call carries over long distances. The species lives only from Honduras to western Panama and is therefore endemic to the guide area.
Voice
The male gives an extremely loud, explosive bonk or bock, often combined with high whistled notes; the call carries over great distances. The song differs between regions and young males learn it from older birds.
Recording: Enrique Varela — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
Male about 30 cm, female about 25 cm. The male is chestnut with a white head, neck and upper breast. Three thin, black, worm-like wattles hang from the base of the bill, one from the upper mandible and one at each corner of the mouth; when calling they can reach about 10 cm in length. Bill black, with a wide gape. The female is smaller, olive-green above and yellowish below with olive streaks, without wattles. Young males at first resemble the female and acquire adult plumage and wattles only after several years.
Confusion species
The male, with its white head, brown body and wattles, is unmistakable. The female may be confused with other large olive-green fruit-eaters, but is larger and heavier-built, with a broad bill and clear streaks on the yellow underparts.
Habitat
In the breeding season in humid montane forest and cloud forest, where males call from fixed, high song perches. After the breeding season in hill, foothill and lowland forest on the Caribbean and Pacific slopes, also forest edges and semi-open country with fruiting trees. It eats mainly fruit, often of the laurel family, which it swallows whole.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and western Panama. Does not occur outside the guide area. Birds move during the year between the mountains and lower elevations, partly over long distances.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the breeding season, roughly from March to June, the male can first be heard around Monteverde in Costa Rica and then often seen on a high bare branch.
Conservation status
Vulnerable. The forest at lower elevations where the birds spend the non-breeding season has largely been cleared. Numbers are declining.
Scientific name
Procnias tricarunculatus | (Verreaux & Verreaux, 1853)
Verreaux & Verreaux described the species in 1853 as Casmarhynchus tricarunculatus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Procnias was introduced in 1811 by Illiger. Procnias refers to Procne of Greek mythology, who was transformed into a swallow. tricarunculatus is Latin, from tri- 'three' and caruncula 'fleshy wattle', after the male's three long wattles at the bill base. The specimen the first description was based on came from Bocas del Toro, northwestern Panama.