[Dave B Smith]

I believe this is a Dark Pewee. However, I am not familiar with this specie and would like confirmation or correction. We saw it, feeding Pewee fashion - returning to same perch, at Bosque de Paz. This is near the volcano Poas and at an altitude of about 5000 feet. I'll apologize in advance for the photo quality.
Thanks,

[tomjenner]

Hi Dave
This is a species that I've still not seen, but it sure looks right. It certainly looks like a pewee and the colouration looks pretty diagnostic.

Tom

[Larry Wheatland]

Don't know much about these, but have you eliminated the possibility of Tropical Pewee ?

[Motmot]

Mmmmmmh.....
I understand your concerns about this bird! Both Tropical and Dark pewees (also the two northern wood-pewees..) appear on the site birdlist.
I don´t like those wingbars for a Dark Pewee, they´re too apparent, but who knows variability. Bill size/colours with what looks to be a very long gape imo look fine for Dark Pewee though, also face design looks to me better for Dark. After saying so I have to admit that probably they´re also fine for some Tropicals!
Check these pictures of Dark:

http://www.zeledonia.org/galeria/fot...s_lugubris.JPG

http://pantransit.reptiles.org/image...rk_pewee_2.jpg

http://www.mangoverde.com/wbg/images/00000012028.jpg

http://bird.incoming.jp/23/jpgl/4475...rk%20Pewee.jpg

Also a few Tropical to compare. Tropical is very variable so there may be birds looking much more like our subject.

http://www.avesphoto.com/website/pictures/PEWTRP-3.jpg

http://www.greenbackedheron.com/photo/130051507

http://static.flickr.com/45/130048539_411ce97343.jpg

Probably Dave´s appreciation on this bird´s jizz, size and behaviour will help a lot to decide which one it is. I can´t be sure 100% with just the images.

Saludos
Eduardo

[Dave B Smith]

Thanks all for your comments,
Here's a little more of the story and some of the reasons we tentatively called it a Dark Pewee as well as some of the doubts we had.

We were bothered by the wingbars (as also mentioned above) and felt the overall color was lighter than expected (from our fieldguide). Watching it, it was feeding much higher (about 30 feet) than we have usually seen Tropicals feeding (which tend to be down around 5 to 10 feet). It also returned fairly consistently to its perch during the 20 minutes we watched it. This is normal for Dark but not so common for Tropical. On landing it would vibrate its tail almost every time, but this is consistent for both. It also appeared to be larger than the Tropical Pewee, but of course size on a lone bird always has some risk, though we were fairly close to it.

The other question that came up later was when we checked distribution, the Dark Pewee is resident in this area (Caribbean flank of Cordillera Central) and is normally between 4,000 to 7,000 feet elevation. The Lodge is at about 4,600 feet elevation so is well within this range. The Tropical Pewee is common in the Caribbean lowlands and doesn't appear to get up to this higher elevation until around Cartago (seen at 4300 ft) and then up to 5,000 feet near the Panama border.

I know the Tropical Pewee is on the site list for the Bosque de Paz but I don't know how frequently the Tropical has been seen there. (I will email this question to them).

In any case, I didn't feel this was a "perfect" Dark Pewee and was interested in other comments. I know we don't have a photo in the BF database, and was hesitant to add this one since it didn't look like a positive ID.

Thanks again,

[Motmot]

Well, after reading Dave´s further info I´m even more inclined to see a Dark Pewee on these pics. Still worried about those wing-bars but maybe it´s a feature of some individuals we don´t know much about.