White-cheeked Pintail

How to find it

Treat it as a bonus, not a target. Scan flocks of dabbling ducks on lagoons, marshes and flooded rice fields for a bird with a pale face. Look at the head first, since a bold white cheek and throat is the quickest clue. Then check the base of the bill for the red patch. Local birders found the 2021 birds and several people went to see them, so local reports are worth following. On a trip we build, a good local guide will know if one has been reported nearby.

How to recognise it

Across its range this is a brown duck with a white face and throat. These are the marks to learn:

A grey bill with a red patch at the base.

A brown crown that meets the white face in a clear line.

A pointed, pale buff tail.

An iridescent green patch on the wing, the speculum.

A breast and belly spotted black.

Males and females look alike, though females are a little duller. These details describe the species in general, and a good look at the head is usually enough to settle the identification.

Behaviour and diet

It feeds by dabbling, taking aquatic plants, grass seeds, algae, insects and small water invertebrates. It usually travels in pairs or small flocks. It is one of the few Anas ducks that does not migrate, which is part of why one turning up in Costa Rica is so unexpected.

It sometimes mixes in flocks with the Pato Maicero, a South American species. In Costa Rica the Las Pangas bird was found among migrant northern ducks such as pintails, shovelers and teal, so it pays to scan through flocks of dabblers rather than look only for a lone bird.

Where it lives

Across its normal range it prefers brackish lagoons and marshes. It can also turn up on freshwater lakes and ponds, and it nests in mangroves or on lagoon shores.

In Costa Rica it is a vagrant. Records come from Bahía Drake on the Osa Peninsula, from the rice fields near Ciudad Neily in the south, from Punta Morales, and from Cocos Island, which Avibase counts within Costa Rica.

When to see it

There is no regular season for this duck in Costa Rica, because every record is a single vagrant event. Two adults were photographed at Bahía Drake on 21 August 2018, a Galápagos-type bird was recorded on Cocos Island in August 2010, and one was reported at Punta Morales in October 2021.

Similar birds

Within its normal range nothing else looks like it, thanks to the pale face and red-based bill. The male Northern Pintail is the likeliest mix-up here. The easiest way to separate them is the face: the White-cheeked has a bold white cheek and throat, while the Northern male has a white stripe up the side of a brown neck. The Northern Pintail's tail is also longer and more slender.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

The Costa Rican Spanish name is Pato Gargantilla. Other Spanish names used across Latin America include Pato Cariblanco and Pato Quijada Colorada, and Peru-focused sources also use Pato Gargantillo and Pato Alavanco. A Costa Rican iNaturalist page gives Pato de Orilla for the Caribbean subspecies.

Status and conservation

The official Costa Rican list gives it status code A, and Avibase lists it as rare or accidental.