The Clockmaker

Bird of the Day Series, Social Media Content

Photo: Owen Deutsch

If you happen to be in the lowland forests of Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Honduras, at dawn, you may hear a croaking ‘cwwaah’, and find the Broad-Billed Motmot sitting on a branch, slowly swinging its tail. That swinging tail is why the locals call him El Relojero, the Clockmaker.  

The tail, known as a racquet, is a result of preening and general wear on the tail feathers; a genetic weakness in the barbs creates the pattern of feather loss. The parent who spends the nights with the chicks loses his or her tail feathers altogether.  

This is a 15” bird which only weighs 66 grams, but he’s strong. And violent. He eats large insects, particularly cicadas, but he can also eat frogs and lizards. He waits in the trees until he spots his prey, then swoops down, grabs it, brings it to a branch and beats it to death. 

These birds waste no energy, do not hop or flit around, and make no sound after sunrise. If you want to see one, you can follow an ant swarm. Motmots follow them as well, scooping up fleeing insects. Nothing escapes them—their eyesight is so sharp that, in gathering dusk, they can spot an ant in grasses at twenty feet. But they spend most of their time sitting still, even during courtship, when a male and female sit side by side and have a conversation.  

Another way to find the Broad-Billed Motmot is to look for holes in vertical earth banks—rather than building horizontal nests, they dig in, creating 3” x 40” burrows. Which they never clean, so their nests are full of maggots. Perhaps that’s why people leave them alone. Their numbers are declining due to loss of habitat, but they are not threatened.