White-necked Puffbird

How to find it

It perches high in treetops, often on exposed dead branches, so it is hard to spot from the forest floor. Elsewhere in its range, canopy towers and walkways are where it is seen most often, but Costa Rica has no canopy towers, so the advice is to scan treetops often. Look especially where hillsides of lowland forest let you see the canopy from a distance. In drier gallery forest, such as in the northwest, you can do better from the ground. Learn the even, drawn-out trill, because it helps you track the bird down.

How to recognise it

Look for these marks:

Glossy black above.

Broad white forehead, throat, upper breast and belly.

A black chest band splitting the white underparts.

White extending around the nape, which explains the name.

A dark red eye.

A very large black bill, slightly hooked at the tip.

In Costa Rica the bird measures about 24 cm long. One Costa Rica guide calls it pigeon-sized, with a huge head and an oversized bill, a useful picture to hold in mind when you scan high branches.

What it sounds like

Recording: Niels Krabbe, CC BY-SA 4.0, source, read 5 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

This is a patient hunter. It sits still for long periods on high open branches or snags, then makes sudden long flights to grab prey, mostly large insects, and beats the prey against a branch. Its big bill lets it take large insects, frogs and lizards. In Corcovado, one bird caught a skink from a branch, beat it on its perch for about four minutes and then swallowed the lizard whole. Birds usually live alone or in pairs.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica it is a generally uncommon resident of lowland humid forest on both the Caribbean and Pacific slopes. It is also found at forest edges, wooded savanna and gallery forest, up to about 1200 m elevation. It lives in drier gallery forest too, such as in northwestern Costa Rica, where it is easier to see from the ground than in wet forest. In the Sirena sector of Corcovado National Park, on the Osa Peninsula, one bird was recorded at about 33 m elevation in lowland rainforest.

Similar birds

Pied Puffbird is also black and white and also lives in the canopy, but it is much smaller. One Costa Rica guide calls it a miniature White-necked. It is easy to overlook, but its loud, descending series of trills gives it away. Otherwise the White-necked is unlikely to be confused with other puffbirds.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Rica's official Spanish name is Buco Collarejo. Other Spanish names listed for the species include buco de collar, buco picogordo and chacurú grande. In Venezuela it is called Juan Bobo.

Status and conservation

It is a resident (R) on the AOCR list, and IUCN lists it as Least Concern, though its populations are decreasing.

Photography tips

Puffbirds wait motionless for a long time before sallying out, so once you spot one it is a good photo subject because it stays put. Scan high exposed branches and snags, and listen for the drawn-out trill to locate it.