I saw the Great Kiskadee more than any other bird in Costa Rica. He’s a beautiful bird and I love all the shots of him, but there were several times where I was taking pictures of tanagers in a tree and the kiskadee would jump in and distract.
He obtained his name from the noise he makes: kis-ka-dee. It didn’t sound exactly like that to me, but he does make a three-syllable sound that is incredibly loud. He has a couple of different calls, though, and one of them sounds like a parrot at the backend of the call. It’s a squawk.
Would you believe that he’s in the tyrant flycatcher family? I was surprised because he doesn’t have that delicate look with the little whiskers around his beak like the other flycatchers.
But I can tell you that he doesn’t just eat only insects because I saw him eating a berry.
There are a variety of birds in Costa Rica that have the same yellow belly, white head and black-stripe combination but the Great Kiskadee is the largest. He’s also distinguished by having a yellow cap. You can see a little bit of it coming out here.
