Calocitta formosa
Silhouette: Peileppe · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~50% in a week ~80%
The white-throated magpie-jay (Cyanocorax formosus) is a large Central American species of magpie-jay. It ranges in Pacific-slope thorn forest from Jalisco, Mexico, to Northern Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Magpie-jays are noisy, gregarious birds, often traveling in easy-to-find flocks, mobbing their observers.
The white-throated magpie-jay was formally described in 1827 by the English naturalist William Swainson from a specimen that had been collected by the naturalist William Bullock in Temascaltepec, Mexico. Swainson coined the binomial name Pica formosa. The specific epithet is from the Latin formosus meaning "beautiful". The white-throated magpie-jay and the black-throated magpie-jay were formerly placed in their own genus Calocitta. When molecular phylogenetic studies found that the genus Cyanocorax was paraphyletic relative to Calocitta, the two species were subsumed into Cyanocorax to resolve the paraphyly. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rincón de la Vieja National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 2 | Santa Rosa National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 3 | Cabo Blanco Absolute Nature Reserve | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 4 | Las Baulas Marine National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 5 | Ostional Wildlife Refuge | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 6 | Cañón del Sumidero National Park | 🇲🇽 Mexico | |
| 7 | Masaya Volcano National Park | 🇳🇮 Nicaragua | |
| 8 | Palo Verde National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 9 | El Triunfo | 🇲🇽 Mexico | |
| 10 | Carara National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 11 | Tenorio Volcano National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 12 | Tapantí-Macizo de la Muerte National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 13 | Arenal Volcano National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 14 | Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 15 | La Tigra National Park | 🇭🇳 Honduras |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Salvador | 🇸🇻 El Salvador | |
| 2 | Managua | 🇳🇮 Nicaragua | |
| 3 | Tegucigalpa | 🇭🇳 Honduras | |
| 4 | Guadalajara | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 5 | San José | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Guadalajara Zoo | 🇲🇽 Mexico | |
| 2 | Lisbon Zoo | 🇵🇹 Portugal | |
| 3 | San Antonio Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 4 | Chapultepec Zoo | 🇲🇽 Mexico | |
| 5 | Zoológico Thomas Belt | 🇳🇮 Nicaragua | |
| 6 | Tracy Aviary | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 7 | Zoológico Miguél Álvarez del Toro | 🇲🇽 Mexico |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a White-Throated Magpie-Jay sighting in Masaya Volcano National Park on a given day, based on 437 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 33rd most-seen of the 134 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 50%, and over a week to about 80%, if each day is a fresh chance.
September–October and December
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a White-Throated Magpie-Jay in Masaya Volcano National Park on a given day, against about 10% in May to July, the lowest months. Those are among Masaya Volcano National Park's wettest months, with about 230 mm of rain a month against 15 mm in January.
Between 6 and 9 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most White-Throated Magpie-Jay 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 15
Of the 15 parks where we can rate White-Throated Magpie-Jay sightings, Masaya Volcano National Park ranks 7th at about 20%. The best odds are in Rincón de la Vieja National Park (Costa Rica, about 70%), Santa Rosa National Park (Costa Rica, about 50%) and Cabo Blanco Absolute Nature Reserve (Costa Rica, about 40%). All parks ranked.
Same order: Passeriformes
The closest relatives of the White-Throated Magpie-Jay that you can see in Masaya Volcano National Park (order Passeriformes, Perching Birds) are Clay-colored Thrush (about 90%), Rufous-backed Wren (about 90%) and Cinnamon-bellied Saltator (about 80%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the White-Throated Magpie-Jay is recorded against all the birds logged in Masaya Volcano National Park (437 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.
