Watch the video and you’ll hear this bird say his name.

The plain chachalaca (Ortalis vetula) is the same size and shape as a female ring-necked pheasant but unlike the pheasant it lives in forests and scrublands from the Lower Rio Grande Valley to Costa Rica.

The chachalaca’s call has been described as “loud and simply indescribable,” deafening, ear-splitting, and “ranking with the call of the howler monkey” for shear loudness. (*Descriptions are from this link at Birds of North American Online)

The video shows only one bird calling so you might wonder, “What’s the big deal?”  To really understand the sound click here to hear a flock calling just after sunrise in Starr County, Texas.

At the beginning of the recording you’ll hear high falsetto calls. The females and immature males have high voices while adult males have deep ones because their tracheas are more than twice as long and wider in diameter.  Young males, like human teenagers, have to wait for their voices to change.

Chachalaca’s do their loudest whooping in the spring, so I won’t have to cover my ears when I encounter this bird … But I may have to wait for the rain to stop before he puts in an appearance. (It’s been raining in South Texas for 3 days!)

Cha-cha-lac!

(video posted by Robert Straub on YouTube)