White-ruffed Manakin

How to find it

Look for the male at his display log, where he perches nearby most of the day. Males call most in the early morning, while females visit mostly between 9:00 and 15:00. Guides and visitors often find it feeding in fruiting trees, and tour groups have seen a male eating berries, one sitting quietly by a road and another low along a river. Away from display sites it is easy to miss, as it moves fast through shaded understory tangles, so check fruiting shrubs and treefall gaps. Local birders have led a group along the Rio Java Trail in the Las Cruces forest to a mossy log the manakins use as a display site.

How to recognise it

This is a small, plump bird about 10 cm long, with a short tail and a heavy hooked bill. Males and females look very different.

The adult male is mostly glossy blue-black, with a bold white patch: a white ruff on the throat and sides of the neck that he can raise.

The female is plain and greenish, olive-green with a grey throat. In Costa Rica her grey throat and dark legs separate her from other manakin females.

Young males look like females at first, olive-green with a grey throat. Immatures often show a paler grey throat, sometimes with some white. Older young males are mostly olive with a black mask and a largely white throat.

Behaviour and diet

Males display on fallen mossy logs on the forest floor. Each log has one resident male, and several males may take turns, fluttering down with tail raised and ruff spread.

At a log, two males with puffed ruffs can dance in step. Then each makes a steep aerial dive that ends in a flip and a loud mechanical wing flap, while the female watches.

Away from the logs the species forms groups at breeding areas, but in the lowlands it is more solitary and may join mixed flocks with tanagers.

Where it lives

It lives in the lower and middle levels of dense wet forest, and also in second growth. One source places it at about 1,000 to 1,500 m, and manakins in Costa Rica have not been recorded above 1,500 m.

It is a common resident along the whole Caribbean slope. In the south it is found on the Pacific side in the Talamanca range and coastal ridges, and above 600 m in the higher hills of the Osa Peninsula.

Outside the breeding season some birds in southern Costa Rica move down to the lowlands and foothills, and females seem to travel farther downslope than males.

When to see it

It is present in Costa Rica all year, and breeds from March to June, when displays are most active. Birds move down to the foothills and nearby lowlands between July and December or January, following the heavy rains of the wet season.

Similar birds

The White-bibbed Manakin is a close relative that some authorities treat as the same species. In Costa Rica it is only an accidental visitor, listed as A. When you see a green manakin, check for the grey throat and dark legs that mark the female White-ruffed.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

The Costa Rican name is Saltarín Gorgiblanco. Other Spanish names listed for this bird include Saltarín de Barba Blanca, Saltarín Gorguiblanco and Saltarín Occidental.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it as a resident (R), and the IUCN rates it Least Concern, with a very wide range, fairly common and a population thought to be stable.

Photography tips

A display log is the best stage, since the male perches nearby most of the day and calling peaks early in the morning. Fruiting trees and shrubs are the other places to wait. Away from these it moves fast through shaded understory, so patience at one spot works better than chasing.