Wattled Jacana

How to find it

Head for the south Pacific wetlands and scan the swampy edges and the water plants. Coto 47 lies south of Villa Neily, its marshes are large, and a bird was found a short way from the road near the Colorado River.

Local knowledge counts. A birder who lives at Coto 47 knew where the jacana was, and the guide says he would have missed it without that help. Another trip there had failed to find it at least five times.

At the Las Pangas sector there are hundreds of Northern Jacanas in flooded conditions, so check each one, because the rare Wattled can be mixed in. Look closely at any odd jacana, since one near the road looked like a Northern x Wattled hybrid.

How to recognise it

Adults are all black with a purple gloss. The wattles and the base of the bill are crimson to magenta, and the rest of the bill is orange-yellow. The legs are grayish.

Look at the face first. The Wattled has a large forked wattle on the forehead and a small wattle on each side of the bill, not a stiff shield. The bird seen at Coto 47 showed black plumage, a yellow bill and a red shield on the forehead, which is the look to watch for.

Males are about 23 cm long and 95 g. Females are a little larger, about 25.5 cm and 130 g.

Immature birds look like Northern Jacanas, but they show at least traces of the wattles.

What it sounds like

Recording: Eduardo Luis Beltrocco, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

The Wattled Jacana is social, and it stands upright while feeding to watch for danger.

At Coto 47 one bird was seen alone in swampy ground near a warehouse at a Y junction. It moved between the swamp behind the warehouse and the one beside or in front of it.

A dated record shows how brief a sighting can be: a single bird was seen and photographed on the morning of 9 October 2016 in the Coto 47 marshes, near the road to La Campiña, Puntarenas.

Where it lives

It lives in ponds, marshes and lagoons, especially where flowering water plants grow. It also uses sheltered riverbanks where lotus, water hyacinth or grasses spread over calm or slow-moving water.

In Costa Rica it belongs to the southern part of the country, within the Amistad Pacifico and Osa conservation areas. Across its wider range it runs from Costa Rica and western Panama to eastern Peru and northern Argentina.

When to see it

A single bird was photographed in the morning of 9 October 2016 at Coto 47.

Similar birds

The Northern Jacana is the common lookalike. It has a chestnut back and wings and a yellow forehead shield, while the Wattled is all black with red wattles. The two match in size, shape and yellow flight feathers, so colour and facial skin do the separating. Immature Wattled birds can look like Northern Jacanas, so look for traces of wattles.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Rica's official Spanish name is Jacana Sureña, and the older name Jacana Carunculada also appears in Spanish lists. The Northern Jacana is called cirujano, mulita or gallito de agua, and the same names may be heard for jacanas generally.

Status and conservation

Listed as A on the AOCR list, it appears only sporadically in Costa Rica, at the northern edge of its range.

Photography tips

Scan each jacana in a flooded marsh and look for black plumage with red wattles. Check the swamps beside roads and buildings at Coto 47, where one bird moved between neighbouring swamps near a warehouse.