All species › Pelicans, herons and ibises › Herons, egrets and bitterns › Whistling Heron
Position in the tree Birds Aves › Birds with a flexible palate Neognathae › All other modern birds Neoaves › Birds of the elements Elementaves › Tropicbirds and waterbirds Phaethoquornithes › Core waterbirds Aequornithes
Whistling Heron | Syrigma sibilatrix
Fluitreiger | Garza chiflona
The Whistling Heron is a medium-sized heron with a blue-grey back, a golden-yellow neck and breast and a pink bill. Unlike most herons it feeds mainly in grassland, and its whistled call carries far. In the guide area it is a scarce resident in Panama, where it has become established since about 2010.
Voice
A loud, whistled, slightly plaintive kleeeer-er, often in flight and when flushed; also hoarse alarm calls.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
53–64 cm. A rather compact heron with a short neck and short legs. The upperparts are blue-grey, the head, neck and breast golden-yellow to pale ochre, and the belly white. The wing coverts are buff-brown with dark streaks. Birds in northern South America and Panama have a slate-grey crown and crest. The bare skin around the eye is blue. The bill is pink with a bluish-purple base and a black tip, the legs greenish. In flight the white rump and tail stand out; the wingbeats are fast and shallow, unlike those of other herons. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
The combination of a blue-grey back, a yellow neck and a pink bill is shown by no other heron in the guide area. Cattle Egret Ardea ibis, which feeds in the same kind of pasture, is white, with orange-buff plumes in breeding plumage, and has a yellow bill. Capped Heron Pilherodius pileatus is white, with a black cap and a blue bill.
Habitat
Open grassland, pastures, wet and flooded savanna and the edges of ponds and ditches, often in a landscape with scattered trees or copses where it rests and roosts. In Panama mainly in ranchland, rice fields and around ponds in the Pacific lowlands. It hunts alone or in pairs for insects, frogs and other small animals, standing, walking slowly or with short dashes. It breeds singly, not in colonies, in trees.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
In the guide area only in Panama, mainly in the Pacific lowlands of eastern Panamá province around Chepo, and west along the coast to Coclé and Los Santos; a few records also from Colón. The first records date from around 2010; since then the species has increased. A few vagrants have been seen in Costa Rica. Outside the guide area in two separate regions: in the llanos of Colombia and Venezuela, and in southern South America, from Bolivia and southern Brazil to Uruguay and northern Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Around Chepo, for example along the road to Finca Tanara, and at the Malibú ponds near Nueva Gorgona the species is seen most often. It often sits in a lone tree at the edge of a pasture or walks in short grass; in flight its whistled call gives it away.
Conservation status
Not threatened. In the guide area a recent colonist with a small population in Panama, which has grown since the first records. The conversion of forest to pasture probably benefits the species.
Scientific name
Syrigma sibilatrix | (Temminck, 1824)
Temminck described the species in 1824 as Ardea sibilatrix; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Syrigma was introduced in 1878 by Ridgway. Syrigma is Greek for 'whistling', from surizō 'to whistle', after the whistled call. sibilatrix is Latin for 'female whistler', from sibilare 'to whistle', after the whistled call. The specimen the first description was based on came from Brazil and Paraguay.