Diglossa plumbea
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~60%
The slaty flowerpiercer (Diglossa plumbea) is a passerine bird endemic to the Talamancan montane forests. This is a common bird in mountain forest canopy and edges, and especially in sunlit clearings and areas with flowering shrubs, which can include gardens. The lower altitudinal limit of its breeding range increases from 1200 m in the north of Costa Rica to 1900 m in the southern mountains. It is found well above the timberline in páramo habitat.
The large cup nest, built by the female, is made of coarse plant material and lined with fine fibres. It is placed 0.4 to 4 m up in a dense shrub, grass tussock or pine. The clutch is two brown-speckled pale blue eggs, which are incubated by the female alone for 12–14 days to hatching.
The slaty flowerpiercer has an upturned bill with a hooked upper mandible and pointed lower mandible. It is 10 cm long and weighs 9 g. The adult male is blue-grey with a lead-grey throat and breast. The tail and wings are blackish with grey feather edges. The female is olive-brown above with a paler throat and breast shading to buff on the belly. Young birds are like the female but have two tawny wing bars and faintly streaked buff-yellow underparts.
The slaty flowerpiercer has a thin tsip call. The male's song consists of a mixture of whistles, warbles and trilled notes, see-chew see-chew see-chew seer seer surrzeep, tsee tsew tsink tsink tsink. As its name implies, the slaty flowerpiercer pierces the base of the flowers of shrubs and epiphytes with its bill and extracts the nectar through the hole with a brush-like tongue. It also feeds on tiny insects taken from foliage or in flight. It is attacked by territorial hummingbirds defending their feeding areas, and then retreats to dense cover. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Irazú Volcano National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 2 | Los Quetzales National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 3 | Volcán Barú National Park | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 4 | Tapantí-Macizo de la Muerte National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 5 | Poás Volcano National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 6 | La Amistad International Park (Panama) | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 7 | Braulio Carrillo National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 8 | Chirripó National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 9 | Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 10 | Arenal Volcano National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Slaty Flowerpiercer sighting in Braulio Carrillo National Park on a given day, based on 492 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 126th most-seen of the 505 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 60%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May–June and September
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Slaty Flowerpiercer in Braulio Carrillo National Park on a given day, against about 10% in July–August and October–April, the lowest months.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Slaty Flowerpiercer sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
7th of 10
Of the 10 parks where we can rate Slaty Flowerpiercer sightings, Braulio Carrillo National Park ranks 7th at about 10%. The best odds are in Irazú Volcano National Park (Costa Rica, about 80%), Los Quetzales National Park (Costa Rica, about 70%) and Volcán Barú National Park (Panama, about 50%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Thraupidae
The closest relatives of the Slaty Flowerpiercer that you can see in Braulio Carrillo National Park (family Thraupidae, Tanagers and Allies) are Blue-gray Tanager (about 50%), Scarlet-rumped Tanager (about 40%) and Variable Seedeater (about 40%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Slaty Flowerpiercer is recorded against all the birds logged in Braulio Carrillo National Park (492 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.
