Plain Chachalaca

Ortalis vetula

The plain chachalaca is a large bird in the chachalaca, guan and curassow family Cracidae. It breeds in tropical and subtropical environments from mezquital thickets in the Rio Grande Valley in southernmost Texas, United States to northernmost Costa Rica. In Central America, this species occurs in the Pacific lowlands from Chiapas, Mexico to northern Nicaragua and as a separate population in Costa Rica, where its range is separated by a short distance, as a disjunct population. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 950 times across 6 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

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Movement and weather

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in North America ranged from 18°N in December to 27°N in June, about 1,100 km apart.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

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Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.