Yellow-billed Jacamar / Geelsnavelglansvogel

Yellow-billed Jacamar (Galbula albirostris)

Pictures (click on them to enlarge)
© John S. Dunning	© Ricardo van Dijk	© Ton Plug
© Caroline Spertini	male just out of a hole © Alexander Elias

The Yellow-billed Jacamar is regularly seen in places with dark forest like the Raleigh Falls nature reserve, Brownsberg or Palumeu. Jacamars hunt flying insects, they perch on a branch and fly away when they try to catch an insect and then return. They breed in holes.
Photos of a yellow-billed jacamar, the first one seen by Ricardo van Dijk in the Raleigh Falls nature reserve in February 2009 and the second one caught at the Brownsberg nature reserve, by J.S. Dunning in 1978.
Alexander Elias photographed a male that just came out of a hole and was seen by Fred Pansa near Zintete.
The sound of the yellow-billed jacamar was taped by Otte Ottema at Bakhuys in Suriname.

Birdsounds (click on them to listen)
Sound recording of a Yellow-billed Jacamar © Otte Ottema, bird guide

Distribution

Each small square indicates the observation of at least one (group) of these birds, the medium ones at least four observations on different days and the largest ones ten or more. The color of each square indicates: blue for coastal area, yellow for savanna and red for rainforest.
Not all places in Suriname have been equally often visited by birders, so the distribution of the squares gives an indication of the whereabouts of the birds, but also of the birders. Some places deep in the south have no reported bird observations, by experienced birders, within 60 kilometer.

Abundance in different areas
coastal zone (blue dots on the map) :
northern savannas (yellow dots (in the north)) :
rainforest under 400 m (red dots) :
rainforest above 400 m (red dots) :
Sipaliwini savanna (yellow dots (in the south)) :
A blank is shown if not convincingly reported in the zone. Data interpreted by Arie Spaans, Otte Ottema and Jan Hein Ribot.

Names
Scientific name:	Galbula albirostris
Order:	Galbuliformes
Family:	Galbulidae, 6 in Suriname
Dutch:	Geelsnavelglansvogel
English:	Yellow-billed Jacamar
Sranan ('Surinamese'):	granman korke (chief hummingbird)
Guyana:
Papiamento:
Spanish (Venezuela):	Barranquero pico amarillo
Portugese (Brazil):	Ariramba-de-bico-amarelo
Arowak:
Carib:
French:	Jacamar à bec jaune

Observations through the year	Observations of breeding through the year

The 149 reported observations of this bird in Suriname, mainly for the last 50 years up to 2018, have been grouped by month. More birds on one day are counted as one observation. Of course, if the graph should depict the total number of birds seen, the differences between the months could be much more pronounced.	The 2 reported breeding observations of this bird in Suriname. Most observations are about nest with eggs, some about fledglings, or feeding at a nest or the building of a nest. Of the about 5000 nests and eggs found for all species together, about 1/3 comes from the egg collection of Penard between 1896 and 1905. For some reason most collecting then was done in the first half of each year, so the shown distribution does not necessarily reflect the actual breeding preferences. The main dry season in Suriname is reckoned to be from half August to the end of November, the main wet season from half April to half August, but the the timing of begin and end does vary from year to year. Around March a second dry season often occurs.

Observations through the year

Observations of breeding through the year

The 149 reported observations of this bird in Suriname, mainly for the last 50 years up to 2018, have been grouped by month. More birds on one day are counted as one observation. Of course, if the graph should depict the total number of birds seen, the differences between the months could be much more pronounced.

The 2 reported breeding observations of this bird in Suriname. Most observations are about nest with eggs, some about fledglings, or feeding at a nest or the building of a nest.

Of the about 5000 nests and eggs found for all species together, about 1/3 comes from the egg collection of Penard between 1896 and 1905. For some reason most collecting then was done in the first half of each year, so the shown distribution does not necessarily reflect the actual breeding preferences.
The main dry season in Suriname is reckoned to be from half August to the end of November, the main wet season from half April to half August, but the the timing of begin and end does vary from year to year. Around March a second dry season often occurs.

Last update: September 2024 by Jan Hein Ribot. Please mail your comments, photos to: jhribot ( residing at ) gmail (point!) com.
observations can be uploaded to suriname.observation.org or ebird.org ).