Smooth-billed Ani | Crotophaga ani

Voice

The usual call is a plaintive, rising, somewhat whining oo-leek, repeated by group members one after another in flight and on landing. While foraging the birds keep contact with soft clucking and grunting notes; danger brings a harsh, rattling alarm.

Identification

30–36 cm, about half of it tail. Entirely dull black, in good light with a bronze or purple gloss and fine scaling on the head, neck and mantle. The bill is black, very deep and laterally compressed, with a smooth, high hump on the upper mandible that rises above the line of the crown and often shows a small notch at the base; grooves are absent. The eye is dark. The wings are short and rounded, the tail long and loosely attached; it pumps the tail on landing. Flight is weak: a few quick beats alternating with glides. The sexes are alike; young birds have a lower bill without the high hump.

Confusion species

Groove-billed Ani Crotophaga sulcirostris is slightly smaller, with an evenly curved bill without a high hump and with three or four grooves on the side, and gives a two-syllable chee-ho; young birds of both species are best told by call. In Costa Rica and Panama, where both occur, Groove-billed Ani more often chooses drier country. Greater Ani Crotophaga major is much larger, blue-glossed and has a pale eye. Great-tailed Grackle Quiscalus mexicanus has a thin, pointed bill and a sleeker outline.

Habitat

Open and semi-open country with scattered bushes and trees: cattle pastures, savanna, field edges, roadsides, rough ground, gardens and village edges, also the edges of marshes and mangroves; mainly in the lowlands, locally up to about 1500 m. Groups forage on the ground and low in vegetation, often with grazing cattle, on grasshoppers and other large insects, also lizards, frogs and some fruit. Several pairs build a large cup of twigs together in a dense bush or tree; the females lay in the same nest and all group members incubate and feed the young.

Range and movements

In the guide area common in the lowlands throughout Panama, including the islands, and in Costa Rica in the Caribbean lowlands and the south of the Pacific side, including the Valle del General and the Golfo Dulce area. Also on the Bay Islands and Swan Islands of Honduras and the Corn Islands of Nicaragua; elsewhere in the north of the guide area only a few records. Outside the guide area in southern Florida, on the Caribbean islands and over much of South America to northern Argentina.

• Resident
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

How and when to look

In Panama almost anywhere in open lowland country, especially in cattle pastures and along roadsides; small groups often perch in full view on fences, bushes and wires. The plaintive oo-leek as a group takes off gives the species away even when the birds are out of sight.

Conservation status

Least Concern. The species benefits from deforestation and cattle ranching and has been spreading in Costa Rica since the last century.

Scientific name

Crotophaga ani | Linnaeus, 1758

Linnaeus described the species in 1758 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. He introduced the genus Crotophaga in that same work. Crotophaga is Greek, from krotōn 'tick' and -phagos '-eating': 'tick-eater', as anis were thought to feed on ticks. ani comes from the Tupí name Anim for this bird ('social bird'; compare Guaraní Anó). The specimen the first description was based on came from Jamaica.