White-throated Spadebill

How to find it

Plan to find this bird by ear, and learn the abrupt call and the trilled song before you go. Song is mostly given at dawn and early morning, so early starts are the best time to listen. When you hear one, stay put and wait, because it may then sit on an exposed perch. It can later return to a different perch, so keep watching the undergrowth around you. Excited birds, for example after playback, sing a more variable trill.

How to recognise it

This is a tiny flycatcher, about 9 to 10.5 cm long and roughly 7.5 to 11 g, with a very broad, flat bill. These marks describe the species in general, not Costa Rica alone.

Look for:

A white throat.

A brown wash on the chest and sides.

A pale yellowish tint on the belly.

A dark olive-brown crown with a half-hidden yellow patch in the middle. Females have a much smaller patch or none.

A pale buff eye-ring and a buff stripe behind the eye, in both sexes.

Adults also have large eyes, a very short tail and a large head with bold markings, including a pale line over the eye and a black stripe down each side of the neck. Young birds are brighter and ruddier above, with no crown patch and a grey throat and breast.

What it sounds like

Recording: Rodrigo Paiva Lázaro, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

The spadebill stays in the forest undergrowth and moves fast, which is why it is hard to see. It eats small insects and other arthropods taken from foliage, hunting with a quick upward sally from under leaves and an audible bill snap. It sometimes joins mixed-species flocks.

Males court with song while fanning the yellow crown patch, and they make a display flight in which the wings whirr. A Costa Rican nest was a neat cone-shaped cup of fungal threads, plant fibres and dead leaves, with a piece of snakeskin. Another sat about 1 m up in a fork and held two eggs.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica this spadebill lives at middle and upper elevations, roughly 700 to 2,100 m. It is a bird of the foothills and highlands, not the lowlands. It occurs in the highlands along most of the length of the country and continues south into Panama.

Range-wide, it prefers the interior of forest with trees 10 to 30 m tall that are loaded with epiphytes. It also uses forest edges with dense bamboo and vine tangles.

When to see it

Breeding in Costa Rica runs from at least March to May. Song is mostly given at dawn and early morning.

Similar birds

Costa Rica has two other spadebills, the Stub-tailed Spadebill and the Golden-crowned Spadebill. The Stub-tailed is mainly a bird of the Caribbean lowlands, so elevation helps separate it from this highland species. Young White-throated birds, with no crown patch and a grey throat and breast, look different from the adult pattern.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

The official Costa Rican Spanish name is Piquichato Gargantiblanco. Other countries use different names, such as Picochato Gorguiblanco in Panama and Picochato Enano in Argentina. One reserve list also gives Piquiplano de Anteojos, beside the English name Eye-ringed Flatbill.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it as a resident (R), and it is considered common in Costa Rica.

Photography tips

This bird moves fast through the undergrowth, so first hear it, then wait. At Santa Elena the bird used an exposed perch, then later returned to a different one, so watch more than one spot.