450 BIRDS OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA PART 2 



In 1966 I found these birds from near the sea at Puerto Armuelles 

 to Punta Balsa near the end of the Burica Peninsula. They were 

 found also near the sea at Olivo at the eastern base of the peninsula, 

 and in 1960 at Canta Gallo and La Barqueta south of Alanje. They 

 do not occur on offshore islands (specimens from J. H. Batty marked 

 from Canal de Afuera, Gobernadora, and Cebaco being questionable, 

 as I have visited these islands, and those labeled Sevilla and Brava 

 doubtful). 



These motmots range in forest, usually in more open areas, but 

 are found also in second growth, and in the hill country in coffee 

 plantations. In the lowlands they may frequent open thickets in 

 pasturelands. They seem thus more adaptable than many other 

 forest birds as they remain in small tracts of trees where there is 

 undergrowth when the main stand is cut. On the eastern side of 

 the Azuero Peninsula some frequent the rather scanty tree and 

 thicket growth in the steep-banked quebradas. 



Their presence often is made known by their low, single or double- 

 noted call, hoot, hoot, repeated rather quickly. When excited the 

 sound may be uttered so rapidly that it becomes a rolling note. 

 Their normal custom is to rest quietly with the body inclined only 

 slightly forward from the perpendicular, with the head drawn in, 

 and the tail hanging motionless. When stimulated by some unusual 

 circumstance, but not frightened, the tail is swung from side to side 

 like a clock pendulum, and may be vibrated up and down. Their 

 flight through the trees or thickets (not in the open air above) is 

 rapid and direct, perhaps from a low perch to a higher one. At 

 times they seem wary, though usually it is not difficult to approach 

 them. When they are seen low down in undergrowth the blue to 

 greenish border on the forehead and side of crown seems to reflect 

 light even in dark shadow, so that it may serve as a recognition mark. 



The birds regularly are found two together, or near one another, 

 an association that I have learned when checked usually proved to 

 be a pair. The nesting period in western Panama appears to come in 

 February and March. On several occasions I have found them at 

 this time near steeply sloping banks, and have taken birds with 

 fresh earth adhering to the bill. March 17, 1965, at Palo Santo, 

 Chiriqui, I flushed a motmot from a hole dug in a bank on a steep 

 slope along a trail leading down to the Rio Chiriqui Viejo. The 

 burrow ran back for a meter through sandy soil, sloping slightly 



