Crested Oropendola / Kuiforopendola, Ponpon

Crested Oropendola (Psarocolius decumanus)

Pictures (click on them to enlarge)
© Dominiek Plouvier	© Louis des Tombe	© Louis des Tombe
© Tinus Knegt	© Tinus Knegt	© Dominiek Plouvier
© Dominiek Plouvier	© Jean-Louis Rousselle	© Ricardo van Dijk
© Ton Plug	© Hans Majong	© Lidwien Peterse
© Lidwien Peterse

The Crested Oropendola is a robust, dark bird with conspicious yellow tail feathers and a citron yellow bill. The male clearly is bigger than the female, characteristic for this family of birds (oropendolas, caciques, the red breasted blackbird, orioles and cowbirds in Suriname). Their English and Latin name means: 'with hanging nest'. The Oropendola makes a spherical nest of palmfibres, hanging from a branch of a high isolated tree. The nests and the birds are easily spotted as oropendolas breed in colonies. And they often make a very special sound and make acrobatic movements around a branch of a tree as in the third photo. In the breeding season (november to april) we can see them seeking for fibres of palm leaves and take them to their nesting tree very elegantly. In this tree there is often a male making funny noises (listen to the video), while hanging from a branch. Sometimes it gets so exited that it will flip around the branch. Near the nests are sometimes nests of wasps, that form a protection for the birds and their young. Other birds make it a habit to lay their eggs in these nests and those of the family member, the yellow-rumped cacique. In Suriname especially the cuckoos and cowbirds 'commit' such brood parasitism.
The first photo was made by Wouter Plouvier of a Oropendola taking some nesting material from a cocos palm, the second and third beautiful ones by Louis des Tombe. Then follow two pictures by Tinus Knegt taken at the Frederiksdorp plantation in November 2008 and then two photos by Dominiek Plouvier and one by Jean-Louis Rousselle from Commewijne made in January 2104. Ricardo van Dijk photographed his bird at De Plantage in Commewijne district in February 2009.
To see them makes me homesick, they so remind me of nature in the tropics. There is a short video of oropendolas in a nesting tree made by Raoul Ribot at Republiek and the sound of a Crested Oropendola, recorded by Alexandre Renaudier in French Guyana near Awala-Yalimapo in June 2008.
Dominiek Plouvier made a video of a bird flying to its nest.

Birdsounds (click on them to listen)
Sound recording of a Crested Oropendola © Alexandre Renaudier

Video (click the link or the 'play'-button to see)
Video recording of a Crested Oropendola © ;	Video recording of a Crested Oropendola © ;

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:	Psarocolius decumanus
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Icteridae, 13 in Suriname
Dutch:	Kuiforopendola, Ponpon
English:	Crested Oropendola
Sranan ('Surinamese'):	Ponpon
Guyana:	Bunya
Papiamento:
Spanish (Venezuela):	Conoto negro
Portugese (Brazil):	Japu, Rei-congo
Arowak:	Boenja
Carib:	Totowno, Japoe
French:	Cassique huppé

Observations through the year	Observations of breeding through the year

The 888 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 67 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 888 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 67 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 ).