Channel-billed Toucan / Groefsnaveltoekan, Blakanoso

Channel-billed Toucan (Ramphastos vitellinus)

Pictures (click on them to enlarge)
acai, Euterpe o. © Ton de Koning	© Candy McManiman	© Pieter Verheij
© Carla Out	© Stephan Ferrier	© Stephan Ferrier
© Stephan Ferrier	© Francita Rijhiner	© Ton Plug
© Jan Hein Ribot	© Bert van den Broek	© Serano Ramcharan
© Paul Woei

The Channel-billed Toucan is smaller than the red-billed one. Except by their black bills, they are also recognisable by the red feathers just above their tail. In the forest they are often found in small groups, staying high in the trees often on bare limbs in treetops. With their large bill they can reach for fruits and berries at the end of small twigs. The channel-billed toucan doesn't come to the coast as often as the red-billed does after the rainy season.
Their sound can be heard from far away and is quite distinct. A call from the channel-billed toucan is available.
The drawing was made by the artist Paul Woei, Suriname 1989, the first photo by Ton de Koning. There are also fotos by Candy McManiman, 2005 and by Pieter Verheij and Carla Out, both in 2007. Stephan Ferrier saw the bird in February 2013. Photos of the other toucans of Suriname can be found in gallery 5 in the menu.
Dominiek Plouvier made the video of the Channel-billed Toucan eating the berries of a Guapira sp. tree. The tree gets visited by a lot of hungry birds.

Birdsounds (click on them to listen)
Sound recording of a Channel-billed Toucan © Jan Hein Ribot

Video (click the link or the 'play'-button to see)
Video recording of a Channel-billed Toucan © ;

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:	Ramphastos vitellinus
Order:	Piciformes
Family:	Ramphastidae, 7 in Suriname
Dutch:	Groefsnaveltoekan, Blakanoso
English:	Channel-billed Toucan
Sranan ('Surinamese'):	Blakanoso
Guyana:
Papiamento:
Spanish (Venezuela):	Diostedé pico acanelado
Portugese (Brazil):	Tucano-de-bico-preto
Arowak:	Sieroe
Carib:	Goenia, Koeiloe, Kelemassa
French:	Toucan ariel

Observations through the year	Observations of breeding through the year

The 811 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 1 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 811 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 1 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 ).