Lance-tailed Manakin

How to find it

Start at Rio Negro, a patch of secondary forest with a wide, flat trail, a short drive from Sabalito, east of San Vito. You walk in and out along the same single trail, so it is easy to pace yourself. The San Vito Bird Club invites visitors to walk into the 'tunnel' of the To-le-do song there, so listen first and look second. One visiting birder heard the bird at Rio Negro but could not see it, which shows how shy it can be, though the same walk turned up good mixed flocks. The club leads regular bird walks, usually on Sundays, and local guides are available.

How to recognise it

The male is mostly black with a red crown patch, a bright sky-blue back and orange legs. A San Vito birding club calls him unmistakable: red cap, blue back, tiny tail and orange legs.

Both sexes have two lengthened central tail feathers that form a short spike. The bird is about 13.5 cm long.

Females and young birds are olive-green, paler below. Her tail spike is what sets her apart from other green female manakins.

Young males start to show a red cap and some blue on the back as they mature.

Costa Rica's national museum notes that in both toledo species the females and young birds show longer tail projections than other manakins. The Lance-tailed female has a shorter tail than the Long-tailed Manakin, and both females measure about 15 cm.

What it sounds like

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

Behaviour and diet

Two males cooperate in courtship. They perch side by side on a bare stick and jump up and down in turn, sometimes with short flights, while a female watches.

The dance is a simple hop up and down from a perch. It lacks the cartwheel movement seen in the Long-tailed Manakin. The San Vito club says males are at leks January to March.

All Costa Rican manakins are year-round residents that also breed in the country.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica the species is concentrated in the South Pacific region near the Panama border, around San Vito in the Talamanca foothills. Costa Rican manakins as a family live mostly in lowlands and foothills, and none have been recorded above 1,500 m.

Across its whole range it uses many kinds of woodland with fairly open undergrowth, from dry to humid semi-deciduous forest, and it tolerates scrubby secondary woods in semi-open country. One range-wide description puts it most often at about 1,000 to 1,500 m, in the middle and upper undergrowth of humid forest, especially where the forest is partly thinned.

When to see it

A San Vito birding club and a Costa Rican travel guide both name January to March as the time when Rio Negro is one of the few dependable places for this manakin, with males at leks in those months.

Similar birds

The Long-tailed Manakin is the species most likely to come to mind. Its tail streamers are clearly more striking than those of the Lance-tailed, and the two do not overlap in range. In Costa Rica the Long-tailed lives in riparian forests of the Nicoya Peninsula and part of the Central Valley, far from the Lance-tailed in the south Pacific.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

In Costa Rica the bird is called Saltarín Coludo. The name Toledo is also given to it, though that name mostly belongs to the Long-tailed Manakin, and the national museum's distribution page calls this species the 'toledo coludo'. The name Toledo imitates its toe-LEE-do chirp. Venezuelans call it saltarín cola de lanza or benítaro.

Status and conservation

Resident (R) on the AOCR list, it is listed as threatened in Costa Rica because its population is small and its range extremely limited, though worldwide it is rated Least Concern by the IUCN.

Photography tips

A Costa Rican photography tour company says manakins are hard to photograph because they live in forest and switch perches fast. Its recipe is knowing where to find them, understanding behaviour and being patient.