A few mornings ago, I got up early to join neighbors Karen and Wendy on a hike up into the hills behind our homes. The closer to sunrise one can go out, the more birds, butterflies and monkeys you are likely to see, all animals generally seeking shelter as the sun climbs higher in the sky and temperatures soar. As the sun rises, the birds start to call to each other: good mornings and certainly other messages, but all of their vocalizations are a favor to those of us who delight in seeing them. Otherwise, we would likely tramp right by all of them because even their gaudy tropical colorations are not enough to make them easily visible in the heavy forest of the hills here.
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| This is a Turquoise Browed Mot Mot, one of my favorites |
I have many favorite birds here in Costa Rica that I love for different reasons. Some are bold, some are curious or amusing, some are fascinating for some behavior or characteristic and others are simply stunning to look at. Trogons fall in to the latter category. The males seem to me like the richly dressed kings of the forest and fortunately for me, it is breeding season for trogons which means that all of the splendored kings are posing on conspicuous branches trying to call in females with their songs.
On this morning we walked along an abandoned road and were flanked by trogons in the trees on both sides. This is an Elegant Trogon which has a raspy call that gives it away.
A little further on, we were greeted by these Black-headed Trogons which are a less immediately stunning until they turn around and you are treated to metallic blues and greens on their backsides.
Trogons to the left and right of us was a great way to start the day!
(The king of kings of the trogon family is the Respledent Quetzal which with its iridescent feathers and 18’ long trailing tail feathers is a bit hard to believe. I profiled them back in November earlier in this blog if you would like to see them).
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