Peg-billed Finch

How to find it

Check bamboo patches in the highlands. Numbers are reported to be high when bamboo is flowering at favoured sites such as Cerro de la Muerte. Moist thickets with plenty of bamboo suit it best. Watch flowers as well, since it robs nectar from tubular blooms. Look carefully through groups of flowerpiercers, because one briefly passed as a flowerpiercer among the many Slaty Flowerpiercers on Volcan Irazu. Tour groups have found it near the Irazu summit.

How to recognise it

Start with the bill. It is slightly upturned, black on top and yellow-orange below, which gives the bird an odd, flowerpiercer-like look.

The rest of the picture is simple:

- Size: a long-tailed small bird, about 13.5 cm long and 16 g.

- Male: slate gray, plain all over and paler on the belly.

- Female: olive-brown above and paler below, with bold cinnamon wingbars.

Neither sex has bright colours to catch the eye, so the bill and the long tail are what to look for. The wingbars are a useful mark on a female when the bill is hard to see.

Behaviour and diet

The Peg-billed Finch sips nectar from flowers, picks insects from foliage and also eats seeds. Spiders and grass seeds are listed too. At Irazu, birders watched Peg-billed Finches poking holes near the base of tubular flowers to rob nectar, a habit that suits that upturned bill.

Bamboo seeds are a favourite food, but they are only available now and then, when bamboo flowers in mass. That boom and bust shapes where the bird is easiest to find.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica it is uncommon at the edges and clearings of mountain forest, in scrubby second growth, in bamboo clumps and in bushy pastures. It lives from about 1500 m up to the treeline, and in the wet season it can drop to 1200 m. It favours moist thickets with plenty of bamboo.

It is found patchily in the Costa Rican highlands, from Guanacaste south to western Panama (Chiriqui). The paramo of Cerro de la Muerte, above 3,000 m, is listed as a place to see it, alongside Volcano Junco and Zeledonia.

Similar birds

The Slaty Flowerpiercer is the bird to rule out. It has a similar upturned bill, and a Peg-billed Finch can pass for one at first glance. The finch is larger and slimmer, so compare shape and size before you move on.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

In Costa Rica the bird goes by Fringilo Piquiagudo. Spanish references also use Yal Costarricense. In Panama it is called Pinzon Piquiagudo.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it as a resident endemic (R-END), and it is rated Least Concern worldwide, though Costa Rica's national list (SINAC) classes it as endangered.

Photography tips

A Costa Rica guide found it hard to photograph, and the best of his many shots near Poas was still a poor image. Expect fast, brief views. Bamboo stands around Poas are worth checking, and flowering bamboo on Cerro de la Muerte may bring numbers up.