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Costa Rican Brushfinch | Arremon costaricensis
Costaricaanse struikgors | Cerquero costarricense
The Costa Rican Brushfinch is a large Arremon brushfinch of the undergrowth of montane forest in southern Costa Rica and western Panama. It was formerly included in the Andean species Arremon torquatus and is now treated as a separate species. Its range lies almost entirely within the guide area.
Voice
Very high, thin and sibilant notes, often in a short series; the song is a high, faint series of whistles that often goes unnoticed.
Recording: Jorge Gabriel Campos — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
18–20 cm. Head black with a grey central crown stripe and a long grey supercilium. Throat white. Upperparts olive-green. Breast and flanks grey, centre of the belly white. Bill black and fairly heavy, legs long and sturdy. The sexes are alike; juveniles are duller, with an olive-brown head and a yellowish throat.
Confusion species
Chestnut-capped Brushfinch Arremon brunneinucha has a chestnut crown and a narrow black breast band below the puffed-out white throat. Orange-billed Sparrow Arremon aurantiirostris is smaller and has an orange bill and a black breast band. Sooty-faced Finch Arremon crassirostris has a dark grey face with a white malar stripe and a yellow centre to the belly.
Habitat
Undergrowth of humid foothill and montane forest, forest edges and dense mature second growth, mainly between about 600 and 1600 m. It searches the ground for insects and seeds by scratching backwards in the leaf litter with both feet at once.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Pacific slope of southern Costa Rica, mainly in the southern Cordillera de Talamanca and in Coto Brus, and western Panama in Chiriquí.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Best found early in the morning on shady forest trails and at forest edges around San Vito in Costa Rica, where it rummages in the leaf litter.
Conservation status
Not threatened (LC). Locally fairly common in well-forested areas; sensitive to the loss of foothill forest.
Scientific name
Arremon costaricensis | (Bangs, 1907)
Bangs described the species in 1907 as Buarremon costaricensis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Arremon was introduced in 1816 by Vieillot. Arremon is Greek, from arrhēmōn 'silent, speechless', after Buffon's 'Oiseau silencieux', a bird said to be rarely heard. costaricensis means 'of Costa Rica', where the species was described. The specimen the first description was based on came from Boruca, Costa Rica.