The black-faced grosbeak (''Caryothraustes poliogaster'') is a large seed-eating bird in the cardinal family ( Cardinalidae), which is a resident breeding species from south-eastern Mexico to eastern Panama.

Description

The adult black-faced grosbeak is 16.5 cm long, weighs 36 g, and has a heavy, mainly black, bill. It has a black face, yellow head, neck and breast, and olive back, wings and tail. The rump and belly are grey. Immatures are duller and have duskier face markings. The vocalisations include sharp ''chip'' or ''tweet'' calls, buzzes and whistles, and the song is a musical whistled ''cher chi weet, cher chir weet, cher chi chuweet''.

Diet and behavior

The black-faced grosbeak forages in shrubs or trees for beetles,

caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Sym ...

s and other insects, and also eats fruit such as those of gumbo-limboFoster (2007) (''Bursera simaruba''), seeds, and

nectar Nectar is a sugar-rich liquid produced by plants in glands called nectaries or nectarines, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to animal mutualists ...

taken from flowers or

epiphyte An epiphyte is an organism that grows on the surface of a plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphytes grow are called phoroph ...

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

s. It forms noisy flocks of up to 20 birds, and is often in mixed-species feeding flocks with

honeycreeper The typical honeycreepers form a genus ''Cyanerpes'' of small birds in the tanager family Thraupidae. They are found in the tropical New World from Mexico south to Brazil. They occur in the forest canopy, and, as the name implies, they are specia ...

s and other tanagers as well as New World warblers. It generally tries to avoid human-altered habitat though it can be sometimes found in heavily degraded former subtropical or tropical forests.BirdLife International (2004)

Habitat and breeding

The species breeds in the Central American lowlands and foothills from sea level to about 1000 m altitude, and is found in the canopy and middle levels of dense wet forests, tall second growth, and semi-open habitats such as woodland edge and clearings. The nest is a bowl constructed from

bromeliad The Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) are a family of monocot flowering plants of about 80 genera and 3700 known species, native mainly to the tropical Americas, with several species found in the American subtropics and one in tropical west Africa, ...

leaves and other epiphytes 3–6 m high in a small tree or palm. The female lays three brown-spotted grey-white eggs between April and June.

Footnotes

References

* Foster, Mercedes S. (2007): The potential of fruiting trees to enhance converted habitats for migrating birds in southern Mexico. ''Bird Conservation International'' 17(1): 45–61. PDF fulltext
* Stiles, F. Gary & Skutch, Alexander Frank (1989): ''A guide to the birds of Costa Rica''. Comistock, Ithaca. {{Taxonbar, from=Q588651 black-faced grosbeak Birds of Central America Birds of Belize black-faced grosbeak black-faced grosbeak