Return of Bird of the Week: Gray-cheeked Nunlet

If there are puffbirds called “Monklets” you should have known there would be puffbirds called “Nunlets.” In fact, there is a whole genus of them, Nonnula, in which there are at least six species. The Gray-cheeked Nunlet is the only one of the six which WC has been able to photograph to date. It’s a pretty easy species to recognize: the reddish eye ring, cinnamon breast and brownish cap are distinctive. Ironically, the Gray-cheeked Nunlet is possibly the rarest of the six. This is a lowland species found in western Panama and eastern Columbia. Like all of the puffbirds, it’s an…