Foto Diarist

Adult Crested Guan at Finca Cantaros. Male and female are similar.

On a quiet Sunday afternoon while walking with my dog, the tranquillity was suddenly pierced by a chorus of very loud avian voices. Melba and I ran up an incline to the forest edge by the orchard to see six highly energized birds, communicating in their own enigmatic language and hopping around the treetops. The long-tailed Crested Guan, as big as a hen turkey, is astonishingly arboreal for a bird that can weigh 3 lbs 12 oz (1.7 k) and measure in length up to 35.8 inches (91 cm). Penelope purpurasa are also surprisingly agile on even slender branches, often preferring to eat upside down. At our nature reserve, Finca Cántaros, these fruit-loving birds are common and, at times, raucous visitors. In forest areas of Costa Rica that are unprotected, Crested Guans (colloquially called Pava, Spanish for turkey) are, in fact, hunted by people in Latin America for their meat. Such hunting is now against the law in Costa Rica except in indigenous reserves. Because these birds are so large and vocal and often move through foliage in noisy groups, they would certainly be easy targets for someone hoping for a turkey leg in the slow cooker. They are reportedly even sold in food markets in Darien, Panama.

Every year in December or early January, after all the leaves have fallen, the Corteza trees (Tababuia crysantha) have their “big bang”–full bloom–overnight, signifying to some the end of our winter rains. The flowers remain on the trees for about four days, then quickly fall and cover the ground. The annual golden flower extravaganza attracts a wide range of birds, bees, wasps and butterflies looking for nectar and pollen. Among the many avian visitors are hummingbirds and very reliably, the Crested Guan.

A Crested Guan resting during its consumption of Corteza flowers.

Crested Guan with Corteza flower in its mouth. The flowers are sometimes torn, sometimes swallowed whole.

In small groups–usually no more than eight–on the blooming Corteza trees, they gorge for extended periods on the flower petals. If I’m walking under the tree photographing them, they eye me and briefly try to hide behind foliage but otherwise throw caution to the wind as they tear off and swallow the yellow delicacies.

For the rest of the year the Crested Guan feeds on shoots, leaves, seeds, (21% of diet) and fruits (76% of diet) such as berries, ficus (figs), wild papaya, wild nutmeg, Cecropia, Guatteria (locally, Guatteria puntata), Spondias, and much more–up to 36 plant species in Costa Rica. Occasionally Crested Guans come to the ground for insects and fallen fruit.

Crested Guans amble on the ground at Wilson Botanical Garden

Not migratory, the Crested Guan are called “sedentary”, keeping to a home range of about 6 km in radius on the Pacific slope. Between March and June–the Guan’s breeding season–I hear several of their vocalizations, but the most arresting are their single or double-note, high-pitched honking calls which can last for at least 15 minutes. Even the wingbeats in flight call attention to the bird with a loud rushing sound, reminding me of the Yellow-throated Toucan’s loud flight pattern.

Researchers in Costa Rica have identified 36 woody plants eaten by Crested Guans. This is a Ficus sp. (fig) at Finca Cántaros.

The conservation status of Crested Guan is “not globally threated” (Least Concern). However, in Costa Rica this species has disappeared from deforested countryside and is becoming rare in unprotected forests: 69% of its original habitat has been lost.

Head shot with bushy crest of a Crested Guan at Finca Cántaros.

Other guans I have been fortunate to see on birding travels include the Black-fronted Piping Guan, in Argentina at Iguazu Falls. 

At least in our county of Coto Brus we commonly see the impressive Crested Guan at Las Cruces Biological Research Station and Wilson Botanical Garden, as well as at Finca Cántaros. In the Amistad Biosphere Reserve about 18 miles to the north and east of us, the largest protected area in Central America, I like to imagine that the population of Crested Guan is thriving. 

Andean Guan, Peru, Aguas Calientes, Machu Picchu, very similar to Crested Guan

Blue-throated Piping Guan, a Pantanal, Brazil species that became accustomed to regular feeding by our lodging manager. (It is a pet with free-roaming privileges).

Resources:

http://www.hbw.com/species/crested-guan-penelope-purpurascens (Handbook of the Birds of the World)

A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica by F. Gary Stiles and Alexander F. Skutch, Comstock Publishing Associates, a Division of Cornell University Press, N.Y., 1989, pp. 118-119

Trogons, Laughing Falcons and Other Neotropical Birds, by Alexander F Skutch, Texas A&M University Press: College Station, 1999, pp. 120-122.

The Birds of Costa Rica A Field Guide by Richard Garrigues and Robert Dean, A Zona Tropical Publication from Comstock Publishing Associates, a division of Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, p. 26.

Corteza flowers on and off the tree draw smiles to the faces of people tired of the rainy season.