Rosy Thrush-Tanager

How to find it

Plan to listen before you look. The bird is shy and skulks in dense understory, so the loud song is usually what gives it away. Pairs sing back and forth, so if you hear one voice, listen for the answer and work out where the pair sits. One Costa Rica tour group heard it on a short stop and never saw it, so give yourself time. A birder found that playback of its voice brought one into view. Because it is local, a guide who knows the patches is worth having.

How to recognise it

Males are dark gray above with raspberry-red on the neck, breast and face. The stripe over the eye is pale pink or white.

Females look similar but are orange where males are red, so an orange-washed bird is a female, not a different species. Young birds look like the female, but their stripe over the eye is entirely whitish.

Shape helps when colour is lost in shade. It is built like a thrush, with a slender downcurved bill, a long tail and long legs suited to life on the ground.

What it sounds like

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

Behaviour and diet

This is a shy bird that skulks in dense understory, so it is usually found by its loud song rather than by sight. Birds feed in pairs, searching leaf litter for arthropods and small reptiles. That ground-hugging life fits the long legs and the reluctance to come into the open.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica it lives in the southwest, starting in the upper Térraba River valley and continuing south into Panama. Another description places the Costa Rican population in the west of the country, east of San José, continuing south to central Panama. Here it ranges from roughly 200 to 1,000 m in elevation.

Across its whole range it lives in dense tangled understory of deciduous and semi-humid forest and in second growth, up to about 1,500 m.

When to see it

Breeding in Costa Rica is reported between January and September.

Similar birds

Despite the name, it looks more like a mimid or a thrush than a typical tanager. The long downcurved bill and ground-living habits set it apart from the tanagers most visitors expect.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

In Costa Rica and Panama it is called tangara pechirrosada, and the AOCR adds queo. Elsewhere it is frutero paraulata in Venezuela, rosita canora in Colombia, and tángara cuitlacoche or huitlacoche in Mexico.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it as R, and it is considered uncommon in Costa Rica, while the IUCN rates it Least Concern.

Photography tips

This is a secretive bird, and one Costa Rica tour group heard it without ever seeing it. A birder found that playback of its voice brought one into view, so patience, a quiet approach and a local guide are the best tools.