Smooth-billed Ani

Smooth-billed Ani

Smooth-billed Ani: Medium-sized, shaggy bird, black overall with bronze overtones, thick bill and long tail, often bobbed, wagged, and held beneath body. Feathers on upper breast and back are lined with iridescent silver and are scaled. Flight is slow and weak,often low to the ground.

● Song: "kweeeelik", "weu-ick, weu-ick"

● Foraging & Feeding: Smooth-billed Ani: Eats mainly insects, but also takes lizards, cattle parasites, snails, seeds, fruits, and berries; forages in scrublands and fields, usually on the ground.

● Breeding & nesting: Smooth-billed Ani: Three to six pale blue eggs are laid in a nest made of twigs and weeds, lined with grass, and built 5 to 30 feet above the ground in a dense shrub or tree. Eggs are incubated for 14 days by both parents, sometimes assisted by extra birds.

● Similar species: Smooth-billed Ani: Groove-billed Ani has smaller bill with a smooth curvature to the bend and grooves, different call, and is found in south Texas; ranges do not overlap.

Flight Pattern