Birds of Costa Rica: Montezuma Oropendola by Rini Kools

About "Birds of Costa Rica: Montezuma Oropendola"

by Rini Kools

About the artwork

The Montezuma oropendola (Psarocolius montezuma) is a bird from the family of troepials and the order of songbirds. The plumage of the male and female are similarly coloured. The head, neck and breast is black in colour, the rest of the plumage is coloured chestnut brown. Like other oropendolas, the tail feathers are bright yellow in colour; the name oro-pendola comes from this. The chin and cheeks are pale blue. Under the cheeks, the bird has pink 'warts', which are larger in size in the male than in the female. The beginning of the pointed beak is black coloured and the tip is dark orange to red coloured. The bird's legs are black.
The Montezuma oropendola likes to hang out in colonies in free-standing trees. During the day, the females often stay together to look for food while the males disperse in search of food. When doing so, they often stay in the tops of trees. The birds mainly eat fruit but then occasionally eat flowers. They also eat larger species of insects. To eat the flowers and eat the insects, the birds do move towards the ground. The bird is active during the day and before dusk all the birds gather back at the colony.
The bird is very vocal but not musical. It is therefore known for its wide variety of strange calls and screams which are sometimes shrill and annoying. Its most characteristic sound, heard mainly by courtship males, is a loud, deep, pitch-rising 'bell-like' or 'gurgling' roller.
The bird is found in Belize, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama in tropical and subtropical rainforests with open areas and rivers.