Selva Verde, Costa Rica (1 Viewer)

I just got back from a vacation in CR with non-birder friends so no dedicated birding done. Still, my count is approaching 100 and I have a couple of birds I need help with to confirm my thoughts. Appreciate your help.

No 4 looks like rufous-tailed hummingbird, and five like black-hooded antshrike. Not sure right now of the others

Niels

3 is Chestnut-sided Warbler.

james holdsworth said:

3 is Chestnut-sided Warbler.

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Agree. The immatures seem to show up a lot on these south of the border posts.

Best,
Jim

1- Rufous-tailed Hummingbird.
2- Northern Barred Woodcreeper.
3. Chestnut-sided Warbler (very common and throws everyone for a loop).
4. Rufous-tailed Hummingbird.
5. Yes, Black-hooded Antshrike- maybe this was taken in the South Pacific area?

Thanks for your help.
Yes, I goofed. I meant to put the antshrike in my Pacific group - I saw the bird at La Cusinga in Uvita.
I'd never have got the Garden Emerald, it's not in the Stiles & Skutch guide (unless I'm missing something).
Thanks again

peterbod said:

(unless I'm missing something).
Thanks again

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Yes, a newer book.

I too ran into this problem just a week ago or so, in Guanacaste - I am also an owner of a "Stiles & Skutch" (a very wrinkly old copy) and I love it, but the taxonomy is now more than 20 years old. I found a (truly astonishing!) hummingbird when I was there, which matched "Fork-tailed Emerald" in the book; however, on my new Costa Rica checklist (Comité Científico Asociación Ornitológica de Costa Rica, 2009), this species doesn't exist.

I'm sure the taxonomic situation is more complicated than this, but for CR, it would seem that the species that S&S refers to as "Fork-tailed Emerald" has been split into Garden Emerald (Chlorostilbon assimilis) and Canivet's Emerald (C. canivetii). (According to some other checklists I have seen, the latter bird just assumes the "Fork-tailed Emerald" common name; still others lump these two taxa, along with quite a few others, as "Blue-tailed Emerald", C.mellisugus).

As far as I can tell, the two species divide up nicely by range, with C. canivetii being in the north (and beyond, through the remainder of Meso-america and into Mexico), and C. assimilis being only on the South Pacific slope (and into Panama).

The Garden Emerald is mentioned in Stiles and Skutch but as a subspecies of Fork-tailed Emerald. Most lists now split Fork-tailed Emerald into Canivet's Emerald, Golden-crowned Emerald, and Garden Emerald.