Resplendent Quetzal: San Gerardo de Dota, Costa Rica — If you have been following my series on the Trogons of Costa Rica, you might have suspected where it was going, or at least where it would have to end up. Because, while there are lots of Trogons in Costa Rica, and each one is a stunning bird in its own right, there is only one Quetzal, and it is Resplendent! (There are four other Quetzals in South America, but only one in Costa Rica.) The Resplendent Quetzal is, after all is said and done, just another Trogon, the largest of the Trogons, but it is a Trogon in fancy dress…dress fit for a costume ball. Believe it or not, it is actually a brown bird…but its iridescence, caused mostly by tiny bubbles of oil and minerals in the feathers, refracts the light and sends it back as brilliant greens, blues, and golds, over one of the brightest reds imaginable. Then add the textures: the fine filaments of the head and crest, and the exquisitely sculpted overlapping plates of the bib, the fringe-like feathers along the wings raised like a vest, the rich velvet texture of the red chest, the pure white of the proper tail feathers, and the long silly plumes of the tail coverts, blue or green as they wave in the wind…and you get…well you get a Quetzal…and there are few birds in the world, and certainly in the Americas, that come even close to it. It’s restricted range…humid high elevation forest (cloud forest)…its dependence on fruiting trees of the Avocado family…and its need for standing dead trees for nesting cavities, mean that it never was an abundant bird, and that it is near threatened by habitat loss today. It’s relative rarity…the need to travel to specific (and often difficult to reach) locations in Central America to see it…makes it one of the most sought after birds, among both birders and the general public, in the Americas. Probably six of very ten people who see it, see in and around San Gerardo de Dota, in the Sevegre River Valley on the Pacific slope of the Talamanca Mountains in Costa Rica. I have seen it in Honduras, and it is, of course, the national bird of Guatemala, sacred in Mayan cultures all through the region, but like most, my best sightings have happened when an wild avocado tree is fruiting along the road, or on an accessible hill side above or below the road, within ear-shot of the tumbling waters of the river. I have visited San Gerardo for over 10 years now, and I have yet to see the bird in what I would call good light. Soon after the sun hits the bottom of the valley the birds move up higher and further from the road where they are much more difficult to find, let alone see. Next year, while I will go back to the San Gerardo de Dota, I plan to add another location in Costa Rica to see if the birds will sit in good light for me. 🙂 I will say that this year’s third encounter with the Quetzals was the best light I have had so far, and the most cooperative bird. Quetzals do spend a lot of time “posing”. They swallow the small hard fruits of the wild avocado whole, and then have to sit a while to digest the outer flesh, before spitting out the pit. They have favored perches for digestion, and where we saw this bird, the land owners have provided just such a perch out in the open where the bird now sits on occasion, as it did the morning we visited. Still, the images required special processing to get the most out of them. I used Pixomator Photo for basic adjustments and to crop and enlarge to fill the frame with the birds, and then cut out the bird using the magic cut-out tool in Pixomatic…denoised the background in Pixomator again, and composited the two images in Pixomatic. This allowed me to maintain full detail in the bird’s plumage, while making the overall image much less noisy. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with multi-frame noise reduction. Equivalent ISO 1600 to 2000 @ f4 @ 1/500th. the magic cut-out tool in Pixomatic…denoised the background in Pixomator again, and composited the two images in Pixomatic. This allowed me to maintain full detail in the bird’s plumage, while making the overall image much less noisy. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with multi-frame noise reduction. Equivalent ISO 1600 to 2000 @ f4 @ 1/500th.

Collared Trogon: San Gerardo de Dota, Costa Rica — Since we seem to be doing the Trogons of Costa Rica, this is not a great photo of the Collard Trogon, but it is the only one I have from December’s trips. We were chasing a Quetzel and found this fellow hanging out where we expected his more resplendent cousin. The sun was just peeking over the mountains and spilling down into the depths of the Savegre valley. It had not gotten this deep yet. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with multi-frame noise reduction. Processed (heavily cropped, enlarged, noise reduced, and adjusted) in Pixomator Photo and finished off in Apple Photos. Equivalent ISO 4000 @ f4 @ 1/500th.

Baird’s Trogon: Danta Corcovado Lodge, Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica — Continuing our tour of Costa Rica’s trogons, we found this female Baird’s Trogon while looking at both a male Slaty-tailed Trogon and a young Spectacled Owl buried in the same patch of understory, only a few yards from each other. Too much excitement! The Baird’s female is very like the female Slaty-tailed but with much more pattern on the tail and with the grey hood coming lower on the chest. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with multi-frame noise reduction. Processed in Pixomator Photo and Apple Photos. Equivalent ISO 3200 @ f4 @ 1/500th. Not an easy shot with the foreground obstructions. 🙂

Slaty-tailed Trogon: I can keep the Trogon parade going another day here. This is male and female Slaty-tailed Trogon. I was going to say they were not likely mates, since the the photos were taken on different days in different places, male on one day, and female on another, but in thinking about it this morning I realized that, though we got to the spot in two very different ways, both were taken along the same stretch of the Puerto Viejo River. On the first day we were on a boat on the river itself and photographed the male Trogon as it flew back and forth over the river. On the second day, when we encountered the female, we were hiking at La Selva Biological Station, one of the prime birding destinations in the Sarapiqui valley (or the world for that matter), but we were, in fact, only 50 yards from the suspension bridge over the Puerto Viejo, and probably only a couple of hundred yards from the spot where we photographed the male a few days before…so they could indeed be mates. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications and the last one with multi-frame noise reduction. Processed in Pixomator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 1600 @ f4 @ 1/500th, ISO 1250 @ f4 @ 1/500th, ISO 640 @ f4 @ 1/500th, equivalent ISO 6400 @ f4 @ 1/250th.

Gartered Trogon: Dave and Dave’s Costa Rican Nature Park, La Virgen, Costa Rica — Let’s keep the Trogon roll going another day. This is the Gartered Trogon, seen about 10 miles long the Sarapique river from the Black-throated featured yesterday…though in considerably better light! One of our number wanted to walk the entrance drive at Dave and Dave’s, on the way out, after another rewarding visit to this amazing bird photography site, to see if he could get close shots of the Green Ibis we had seen on the way in. The Ibi were not cooperative, but we walked up on this Gartered Trogon in the trees and eventually on the wire along the drive. As you can see, it is very similar to the Black-throated pictured yesterday. Same basic color pattern, and very similar barring on the tail, but the black extends further down the “neck” onto the chest, and bill is grey and the eye-ring is bright yellow (just the opposite on the Black-throated…though the eye-ring is more of a blue grey on the Black-throated). Both are wonderful birds to see. I am sure I will have more to say about Dave and Dave’s in another post. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixomator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 400 and 100 @ f4 @ 1/500th.

Black-throated Trogon: I really do not get bird names. This is the Black-throated Trogon, which is very similar to the Gartered Trogon, except that the Gartered Trogon has a black throat??? (And a yellow eye ring and not a yellow beak, but still…) We worked hard for this bird which Edwin, our local guide, heard calling from the balcony of the dinning hall at breakfast on our second morning at Selve Verde. It was down toward the river, along the next stream that comes down across the property on the other side of the old bend in the river. We went down to try to see it, and it, and its mate, lead us a merry chase through what might have been an old orchard and into the deep brush along the stream, where it remained mostly buried. We had just enough glimpses to keep us going, to soak our shoes, and to make us well late for breakfast…but we did finally get these views through the undergrowth. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with multi-frame noise reduction. Processed in Pixomator Photo and Apple Photos…deeply cropped and enlarged, with some aggressive noise reduction. Equivalent ISO 6400 @ f4 @ 1/500th.

Rufous Motmot: Selva Verde Lodge, Sarapique, Costa Rica — We had a cold front coming through our first two days in Costa Rica, and as I have said, our only significant rain of the trip. And did it rain! Pretty much steady rain for 48 hours. We were still damp from our first day’s wetting when we gathered for breakfast our first morning at Selva Verde (even after using the hair dryers in our rooms on our shoes and socks), but we were greeted by the usual assortment of tropical Rain Forest birds at the feeding station below the breakfast room…including this Rufous Motmot…which I believe is the largest of the Motmots in Costa Rica. It is a spectacular bird by any account. When I visited Selva Verde last, before the pandemic, the Motmot was in residence, but rarely came to the feeding station, and certainly did not perch out in the open. On this visit it was a daily visitor and highly visible. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with multi-frame noise reduction. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos. Equivalent ISO 6400 @ f4 @ 1/60th.

Northern Emerald Toucanet: Mirador y Soda Chinchona, Costa Rica — The last few years the Northern Emerald Toucanet has be a regular visitor to the feeders at Mirador y Soda Chinchona, and by now I would be disappointed not to see it when we visit. It held off this year until way late…as we were losing the light on an already dark day, during a another heavy downfall of rain. I can not say that it looks particularly happy, even with its favorite flute at hand. No singing in the rain at any rate. This is another extreme low light shot using multi-frame noise reduction. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode as above. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. Equivalent ISO 6400 @ f4 @ 1/160th. This is pretty much a full frame shot. I was that close.