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Black-cheeked Ant Tanager: Habia atrimaxillaris
Body: It is 18 centimeters long, with a black head, body, tail, bill, and legs. The male has a bright salmon-colored chest and crown, and the female has a duller colored red chest and smaller crown.
Behavior: It feeds on insects, other small anthropods, and melastome berries. These birds stay in pairs, groups, or even inter-species flocks, inhabiting the understory of dense lowland forests, advanced secondary, growth, and streamside woodlands. Mating species is from mid-January-May, and nests are found at a mature secondary forest site.
Population: The Black-cheeked Ant Tanager is classified as Vulnerable, due to its limited habitat in the Osa Peninsula and around the Golfo Dulce in southwestern Costa Rica. Their already small habitat has been halved since 1960, but the Ant Tanager is still common in Corcovado National Park, and has a relatively stable population hovering between 10-20,000. However, logging in the Goflo Dulce is causing habitat destruction that hurts the Tanager.
Song: It makes a harsh zurzurzurzurzur, chak grunts and chek or chuk contact calls, and a mellowed, whistled dawn sound with
6-11 phrases often ending in a chonck sound.