Great Antshrike

How to find it

Listen first: the song is the easiest way to locate this skulking bird. Pairs call back and forth, so an answering voice can help you pinpoint where to look. Then scan low tangles, scrub and forest edge near the sound. Watch for a bird dropping to the ground to grab prey, as that can bring it into view. At Carara a Costa Rican guide finds it in second growth, where it is less common than at wetter sites. Birds are described as fairly trusting, so patience may be rewarded with a fairly close look.

How to recognise it

Start with the eye: both sexes have a bright red eye. This is a large antbird, about 20 cm long, with a short shaggy crest and a heavy hooked bill. The legs are pale blue-gray.

The male is black above and white below, with two thin white wingbars.

The female has the black replaced by rich rufous brown, and she lacks the white bars on wings and tail.

The male also has a hidden white patch in the middle of the back. It shows during threat displays, so only an agitated bird will reveal it.

What it sounds like

Recording: Chrissy Kondrat, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

This is a skulker of dense vegetation, usually found in territorial pairs, which is why it is so often heard before it is seen. It stays low, about 1 to 5 m above the ground, and forages on the ground and in foliage up to about 2 m.

It moves slowly, hopping from branch to branch in heavy cover. The nest is a deep cup hung from its rim, 1.5 to 2.5 m up in a thicket, often near the edge. Both parents incubate the two to three eggs for about 14 days, and the young fledge about 12 days after hatching.

Where it lives

It lives in dense tangles, clearings, secondary forest, scrub and forest edge, both humid and deciduous. It also turns up in thickets, cocoa and citrus plantations, and sometimes gardens, wherever undergrowth is dense.

In Costa Rica it is a resident on both slopes. One natural history entry says it reaches about 1,400 m in the Central Valley, including the Cartago area, while another gives an upper limit of about 1,100 m. Across most of its range it is found mainly below 1,500 m.

When to see it

Breeding in Costa Rica runs from April to July, so birds should be most active and vocal then.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

In Costa Rica the common Spanish name is batará grande. Other Spanish names include batará mayor and batará blanco y negro, while hormiguero grande is used in Honduras, hormiguero mayor in Nicaragua, and chororó in Argentina and Paraguay.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it as a resident (R), and the IUCN lists it as Least Concern, so it is not at immediate risk of decline.

Photography tips

It moves slowly, hopping from branch to branch in heavy cover and picking prey off leaves and stems. It often drops to the ground to grab prey, which can bring it into view, so watch the base of a tangle as well as the branches.