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Position in the tree Birds Aves › Ratites and tinamous Palaeognathae
Choco Tinamou | Crypturellus kerriae
Chocótinamoe | Tinamú del Chocó
The Choco Tinamou is a small, dark tinamou with a very small range in the Chocó rainforest on both sides of the border between Panama and Colombia. In the guide area it occurs only in southern Darién. It is one of the least known birds of the region: shy, rarely seen and usually detected only by its call.
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Voice
A low, faint, mournful three-note whistle that is inconspicuous. It calls mainly at dusk; outside the periods when it calls a lot, the species is almost never found.
Recording: Andrew Spencer — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
25–27 cm; a small, stocky, almost tailless tinamou with red legs. The crown is blackish, the sides of the neck slate-grey and the throat whitish. The upperparts are dark brown with indistinct dusky barring, the underparts dark brownish-grey. The female is darker than the male, with coarser barring on the wing coverts and breast and greyer flanks.
Confusion species
Little Tinamou Crypturellus soui lives in the same forest, but is smaller and paler brown, with a rufous belly, olive-grey legs and no grey neck sides. Great Tinamou Tinamus major is much larger and more olive-brown, with blue-grey legs. Other red-legged Crypturellus species, such as Slaty-breasted Tinamou Crypturellus boucardi, do not occur in Darién.
Habitat
Humid evergreen rainforest with dense undergrowth, from the lowlands to about 1500 m, with a preference for hill and foothill forest. It eats fallen fruit from the forest floor and low shrubs, as well as invertebrates, buds, young leaves, seeds and roots. The male incubates the eggs of several females in a nest on the ground in dense brush or between buttress roots.
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 southern Darién in Panama, in the area of Cerro Pirre and the hill country along the Colombian border. Outside the guide area in north-western Chocó department in Colombia. The entire range is small and poorly known.
- Resident
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
The best chance is in Darién National Park, on the slopes of Cerro Pirre, at a time when the tinamous are calling a lot; when they are silent a sighting is almost out of the question. Patient listening along forest trails early in the morning and at dusk offers the most chance.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. The species is known from few sites and has a small population in a small range. Threats are road building, new settlements, logging, mining and hunting, which are slowly eroding the forest at the edges of its range.
Scientific name
Crypturellus kerriae | (Chapman, 1915)
Chapman described the species in 1915 as Crypturus kerriae; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Crypturellus was introduced in 1914 by Brabourne, WWK-H & Chubb. Crypturellus is a diminutive of the older tinamou genus Crypturus (Greek kruptos 'hidden' and oura 'tail'): 'little hidden-tail'. kerriae honours the American traveller and collector Elizabeth Lee Kerr (1857–1936), who collected in tropical America. The specimen the first description was based on came from Baudó, Chocó, Colombia.