White-whiskered Puffbird

How to find it

Look for a still, rounded brown bird sitting low and quiet in shady forest or along wooded edges and riparian corridors, often at about eye level. Unlike the White-necked Puffbird, which you scan for high in the canopy, this one is found low in the shady understory. A Costa Rica birder says it is found at many sites but is probably easiest at Carara, and he sees it on most visits to Quebrada Gonzalez. On a group tour the best views came at Carara, where they counted 10 in three days. Listen for the very thin, high calls, and watch for it at army ant swarms and mixed-species feeding flocks, which are good chances to see it away from its usual quiet perch.

How to recognise it

Start with the shape: a plump, rounded bird about 18 cm long with a large bill.

Both sexes have bristles around the base of the bill and white "whiskers", which are really tufts of feathers. A close look can show them well, and a tour group saw them clearly on birds at both Villa Lapas and Carara.

Unlike most puffbirds, males and females look different. The female is grayer on the crown and olive-brown above, with buff to cinnamon underparts that have darker streaks and a white belly.

Juveniles resemble the female but have heavier streaking on the underparts.

What it sounds like

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

Behaviour and diet

This is a sit-and-wait hunter. It perches motionless, then darts out to catch large insects, spiders, and small frogs and lizards. After catching prey it returns to a perch and beats the prey against it before swallowing. One birder on Costa Rica's Pacific coast saw one at about eye level holding a butterfly in its bill, and feeding on butterflies is rarely documented.

Breeding data for the species come almost entirely from Costa Rica, where the season runs from mid-March into July. Nests are at the end of a burrow in gently sloping ground.

Where it lives

It mostly lives in dense evergreen forest but also uses secondary forest and shorter growth at field edges, usually within about 6 m of the ground. A Costa Rican site describes its habitat as forest understory to mid-levels, shady semi-open areas, cacao plantations, and old second growth.

In Costa Rica it reaches about 900 m on the Caribbean slope and up to 1,200 m on the Pacific slope.

Similar birds

The shape and color are much like a pygmy owl, and it also wags its tail back and forth like one. A birder could easily mistake it for a small owl. Remember that it sits low in the shady understory and has the large bristled bill and white whiskers.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Rican sources give the Spanish name as Buco Barbón, and a Costa Rica list also gives a variant spelling without the accent. Older English names include Brown Puffbird and White-whiskered Soft-wing, both referring to its loose, fluffy plumage.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it as a resident (R), and the IUCN rates it Least Concern.

Photography tips

It perches motionless low in the forest and is usually tame, so you can often approach it closely. Wooded edges can give open views: one Pacific coast bird sat fairly exposed at eye level on a lichen-covered crooked limb at the tangled edge of a riverside forest. Forest shade is the challenge. One photographer in Colombia shot a bird before sunrise and needed a very high ISO and a slow shutter, and the bird's stillness made it work.