Highland Tinamou

How to find it

Walk slowly and quietly, stop often, and scan the undergrowth and the trail ahead. Singing birds can be tracked at dawn and dusk, and a flashlight helps. You may get close to one near the trail. Playback works poorly, so patience does more than a recording. Watch under fruiting trees and at army ant swarms, and try spots where fallen canopy flowers attract insects. Start with the trails of Monteverde and Santa Elena, and keep expectations gentle: a group at Monteverde Cloud Forest in 2017 heard one that stayed hidden.

How to recognise it

This is a fairly large, plump ground bird, 38 cm long.

Look for these marks:

- a blackish crown that contrasts with a cinnamon-red throat

- grayish legs

- olive-brown upperparts, finely barred and spotted with buff

- dull cinnamon to buffy brown breast and belly

- a blackish upper bill and a yellowish lower bill

The female looks like the male, but her black barring above and below is heavier and more marked. Birders also note the gray head with a rufous throat above a lightly spotted back. Together with the high elevation habitat, this separates it from the other four Costa Rican tinamous.

What it sounds like

Recording: alicia penney, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

The Highland Tinamou is solitary and wary. It walks on the floor of humid highland forest rather than flying far. Across its range the male holds a home range all year and sings from it, and males sing almost constantly at the peak of breeding season. Some males keep more than one calling arena, linked by paths kept clear of leaves and twigs by their regular walking.

In Costa Rica it breeds from March to August. The nest is a leafy hollow, usually at a tree base, holding 2 to 5 blue-green eggs. A Costa Rican source calls them darker blue-green than the eggs of Great Tinamou.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica it lives in the high forests of the mountain ranges. In the Guanacaste Cordillera it occurs above about 1,200 m. In the Central Volcanic and Talamanca ranges it is mostly above 1,500 m, sometimes down to 1,000 m on the Caribbean slope of Talamanca. A bird photographed in Monteverde cloud forest was at about 1,657 m.

Across its whole range it lives from 500 to 2,500 m but mostly above 1,500 m. It prefers wet areas with dense, tall undergrowth in humid and cloud forest, and favours damp spots, especially ones with bamboo thickets.

When to see it

It breeds from March to August in Costa Rica, and males sing almost constantly at the peak of breeding season. Singing birds can be tracked at dawn and dusk.

Similar birds

Great Tinamou is a brown tinamou with grayish legs, larger than a chicken, of lowland and foothill rainforest. The Highland Tinamou is the cloud forest tinamou of the high mountains, so the two seldom overlap by habitat. Great Tinamou eggs are also paler.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Rican names for it are Gallina de monte, Gallina de monte de Altura, Gongolona and Tinamú Serrano. Costa Ricans call all tinamous gallina de monte. The big species are also called gongolonas and the small ones yerre. A reserve list also gives Perdiz as a general local name.

Status and conservation

It is listed as a resident (R) on the official Costa Rican bird list, and a Costa Rican highland checklist treats it as uncommon.

Photography tips

Photos are hard. One image of a Highland Tinamou scurrying away was called rare, and it was taken by a professional guide. Look for the lightly spotted back and the gray head with a rufous throat, and walk the trails quietly.