Sensitive bird species of coffee farms


Three-wattled Bellbird (left, ph. Clay Taylor), Golden-winged Warbler (right, ph. Bill Schmoker)

Based on preliminary surveys conducted in 2006 and 2007, coffee farms in Central America support a wide variety of threatened wildlife, which are typically found in remnant forest patches on the properties. One of the rarest birds in all of Central America, the Azure-rumped Tanager, considered "Endangered" by BirdLife International, was found to be common in the forest of Finca Dos Marias in southwestern Guatemala. This bird is only known from a handful of sites in Chiapas and western Guatemala, so its discovery on a protected farm with an active forest guard program was particularly heartening.

The large, turkey-like Highland Guan is restricted to southern Mexico and northern Central America, and we documented small numbers on several coffee fincas in Chiapas, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

The spectacular Three-wattled Bellbird was found to be particularly common on farms in northern Nicaragua, with Selva Negra supporting numerous pairs of what may be an isolated race of this Central American endemic.

Most fincas surveyed in Chiapas and Nicaragua were found to support the striking Golden-winged Warbler (pictured above), a Neotropical migrant that summers in old pastures and light woods in eastern North America, and winters in the evergreen forests of Central and northwestern South America.