Top Ten Birds of Costa Rica: #4 White-collared Manakin

Manakins are some of the most characterful birds of the Neotropics, so to exclude them from my Top Ten list would be unforgivable. There are a few Costa Rican species to choose from, but I'm going for the White-collared Manakin Manacus candei, which is a real charmer. These small, fruit-eating birds (there's a photo of one grappling with a seed below) are found in lower level tropical forests below 900 metres (3,000 feet) altitude. Within Costa Rica, they are restricted to the lowlands and foothills on the Caribbean side of the central mountain chain, being "replaced" in the southern Pacific lowlands by the Orange-collared Manakin. The two species were previously grouped together, despite clear differences in the male plumage (the clue's in their names!). However, while the Orange-collared Manakin is endemic to Costa Rica and western Panama, its White-collared cousin has a more extensive distribution, and is found up the Central American isthmus as far as Mexico. 

White-collared Manakin getting to grips with a rainforest seed or fruit.

All of the photos in this blog post are of a male bird. Within the family as a whole, which contains some fifty species, the males are the showy ones with a dazzling range of colours - yellows, reds, blues, oranges and more. Females are generally more subdued, with a palette of dull greens and browns.  As a result, identifying female manakins of different species can be tricky. Such a colour discepancy between the sexes (the technical term is sexual dichromatism) provides a hint aboout their respective life strategies: males display to attact females and mate, but do very little else, while it is the females that make the nest, incubate the eggs and feed the young. No comment!

Mind you, the males put a lot of effort into enticing a mate. The White-collared Manakin has a neat courtship dance which we were able to observe easily at Tirimbina biological reserve (website link here) because the male concerned was displaying next to the main entrance path. His stage was an area of forest floor, which he had partially cleared, dotted with a number of conspicuous vertical stems. Perching on a low branch, he made a loud buzzing sound followed by dramatic pops or snaps like the sound of a breaking twig. These are produced by vibrating the wings; making mechanical noises in addition to their vocalisations is a key manakin trait. (Have a look at this video showing the extraordinary display and sound of Ecuador's Club-winged Manakin, for example.)

Every now and again our male would fly sideways to sit at the base of another stem and repeat the process, sometimes zipping back and forth rapidly between perches. The following two pictures were an attempt to capture some manakin movement.

White-collared Manakin - ready for launch

White-collared Manakin - airborne

(Apologies for the quality of the second image. The light was poor and the bird moved fast.) 

We watched entranced, as the busy male buzzed from side to side. It wasn't obvious whether his efforts were being appreciated, although we had seen a female earlier nearby - an olive-green bird with vibrant orange legs - so her presence may have prompted the show. But the females can sometimes be hard to spot during the courtship process until they make their selection. 

The White-collared Manakin's dance is spectacular, and worthy of being filmed - something that didn't occur to me at the time (but we had more birds to find of course!). However, there are a number of examples available online - such as this short YouTube video by Arnon Dattner from another forest reserve in Costa Rica. Enjoy, with the sound on.

I have watched manakins displaying in other Neotropical forests, including the closely-related White-bearded Manakin at the Asa Wright reserve on Trinidad.  In that case, a number of manakins had gathered at the lek site, although they weren't particularly mobile. ("Lek" is a name given to both the place where males come to display and the displaying process itself.) But at Tirimbina, our White-collared Manakin male seemed to have the stage to himself. I'm hoping that his efforts weren't in vain.

It's good to know that neither White-collared Manakins nor their Orange-collared cousins are considered to be threatened, being classed as "least concern" by the IUCN, even though - as with many other bird species - their overall numbers are decreasing. Habitat protection is the key to their survival, and the future of both species within Costa Rica is likely to remain secure if places like Tirimbina continue to thrive. Of course that raises the thorny issue of how to balance the benefits of eco-tourism, which gives such reserves an economic justification, against the contribution of long-distance flights to climate change. But that's a discussion for another time.

Right - just three birds to go. What will be in the top three? And which bird merits the number one spot?