Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo (Neomorphus geoffroyi salvini); Cuco Hormiguero; Géocoucou de Geoffroy; Geoffroygrundkuckuck

Last month friend and top-notch birding guide Steven Aguilar sent me several photographs he took on July 11, 2024, of a rare and elusive species that I would never have suspected to appear in our area: the Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo. Below are two of a series of impressive images of a single bird that Steven found near his own home patch in San Rafael de Pavones:

The plumage is generally brownish and the tail (not seen here) takes up about half the length of the bird. Its range extends from Honduras south to Brazil but in Costa Rica it is found almost exclusively on the Caribbean side of the country usually only up to about 900 m elevation. With a length of 19″ it is an even larger bird than either the common Squirrel Cuckoo (Piaya cayana) or the equally rare Pheasant Cuckoo (Dromococcyx phasianellus). The latter is a very rare Pacific slope species, which I will also in all probability never see. I live in hope, however.

If you are lucky enough to see one, the Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo is unlikely to be confused with any other bird in Costa Rica. In the case of almost all of the very few sightings it was found in attendance at ant swarms, where it feeds on the many insects flushed out by army ants. This was also the case with the bird at Pavones, where the dark forest-floor habitat makes the quality of these images obtained under such conditions all the more amazing. Many thanks Steven!