Notharchus tectus
Silhouette: Matt Wilkins (Photo by Len Blumin) · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~30%
The pied puffbird (Notharchus tectus) is a species of bird in the family Bucconidae, the puffbirds, nunlets, and nunbirds. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.
The pied puffbird was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in Cayenne, French Guiana. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-colored plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle that was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Bucco tectus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The pied puffbird is now placed in the genus Notharchus that was introduced by the German ornithologists Jean Cabanis and Ferdinand Heine in 1863. The generic name combines the Ancient Greek nōthēs meaning "sluggish" and arkhos meaning "leader" or "chief". The specific epithet... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Darién National Park | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 2 | San Lorenzo Protected Forest | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 3 | Utría National Natural Park | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 4 | Yasuní National Park | 🇪🇨 Ecuador | |
| 5 | Soberanía National Park | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 6 | Bastimentos Island National Marine Park | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 7 | Anavilhanas National Park | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 8 | Brownsberg Nature Park | 🇸🇷 Suriname | |
| 9 | Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 10 | La Amistad International Park (Panama) | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 11 | Cahuita National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 12 | Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve | 🇪🇨 Ecuador | |
| 13 | Amacayacu National Natural Park | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 14 | Manu National Park | 🇵🇪 Peru | |
| 15 | Braulio Carrillo National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 16 | Tortuguero National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 17 | Tambopata National Reserve | 🇵🇪 Peru |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Pied Puffbird sighting in Bastimentos Island National Marine Park on a given day, based on 195 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 166th most-seen of the 375 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February–March and September–November
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Pied Puffbird in Bastimentos Island National Marine Park on a given day, against under 5% in April–August and December–January, the lowest months.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Pied Puffbird sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
6th of 17
Of the 17 parks where we can rate Pied Puffbird sightings, Bastimentos Island National Marine Park ranks 6th at about 10%. The best odds are in Darién National Park (Panama, about 20%), San Lorenzo Protected Forest (Panama, about 20%) and Utría National Natural Park (Colombia, about 20%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Pied Puffbird is recorded against all the birds logged in Bastimentos Island National Marine Park (195 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
