Daily Archives: February 20, 2022

A tale of three male Quetzals

Resplendent Quetzal: San Geraldo de Dota, Costa Rica — The Resplendent Quetzal is, of course, the main attraction in the highland forests of Costa Rica. It is a stunning, relatively large, and almost impossibly beautiful, bird. Everyone wants to see it, and those who have seen one, want to see another. On our first December trip to Costa Rica last year, on our first morning in the mountains, we were up at 5 am, and on the bus by 5:30, for our first try at a Quetzal. We saw one. A single male flew into the wild avocado tree where it had been feeding at the time, and sat for maybe 5 minutes, just at dawn. Then it flew off, and did not re-appear in the time we had before breakfast at 7:30. Enough to say we had seen it, but not enough to satisfy. So on the second morning in the mountains, we were up again and on the road even earlier. The wild avocado trees do not all flower and fruit at the same time. Generally there will be only a few trees in the Savegre Valley in fruit on any given day, so finding the Quetzals is a matter of knowing which trees have fruit. A fruiting tree, if it is along the road where it is easy to get to, can attract 100s of birders and tourists from the lodges all up and down the valley each morning who are eager to see the Quetzal. It is also a waiting game. If you get there early you wait for the first bird to fly in. If you leave right after that, you take the chance of missing the real show. Our guide insisted that we wait, and indeed, as the sun crept down the slopes above us, two more male Quetzals flew in. It might have been hard to tell that we were seeing three different birds, but each of these males had different length “tail streamers” (the tail streamers are actually coverts…normally small feathers that grow from and cover the base of the true tail). Male Quetzals lose the covert streamers during nesting season as they fly into and out of the cavity nest, tending young, and have to grow them out each year, so the length of the streamers is a good indication of how recently the birds have nested. These three were clearly on different nesting cycles. Long, medium, and short. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with wildlife modifications and multi-frame noise reductions. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. Equivalent ISO 6400 and 5000 @ f4 @ 1/500th.