Costa Rica, Day 8 - Rancho Naturalista to Savegre

I once again woke before sunrise (certainly a pattern for me), and decided to get up rather than lie in bed - I brought my computer onto the porch to download photos from the previous two days.  At 5:15am I heard, not one, but two Rufous Motmots calling (taunting me?) from within the forest. as the central american dawn chorus began its serenade. Once Pamela was up, we tried heading into the forest trails a bit to see if we could find the motmots, but although we could hear them (and they always seemed to be just around the next bend), we were never able to see them.  The short morning walk was not a complete failure as we did manage to get really nice looks at a Chestnut-capped Brush Finch among other more common species.  The breakfast bell rang, and we headed in for our last meal at 'Rancho' before getting together our luggage, and meeting the driver who would bring us to our next destination. The driver turned out to be the younger brother of the one who brought us to Rancho a few days earlier, and although certainly a good driver, was less talkative than his sibling - possibly because he was less confident of his English. Neverhteless he was more than willing to stop for birds and look out for a restaurant that I was hoping to stop at - unfortunately, I discovered it wasn't on the way, but about 100km beyond where we were going.  And boy am I glad that we didn't go out of the way.  You see, our next destination was the Savegre Mountain Hotel - one of the best locations in the country to see Resplendent Quetzal.  On the way to the hotel we got to see Sooty Robins and Black-faced Solitaires crossing the road, but the highlight was when we saw another van pulled over so we stopped to see what they were looking at, and well... I think this photo speaks for itself:

 Resplendent Quetzal

This beautiful bird (some have called it the most beautiful bird in the world) was maybe only about 20' away from us.  I snapped photo after photo (most of which looked exactly the same) changing settings, playing with every possible feature on the camera to make sure that I got at least one good photo of this spectacular specimen of avian beauty.  In fact I was so caught up in watching at photographing this bird, that I never even noticed the female fly into the cavity that was only a few feet away from him!  There were probably a total about 8 of us just standing there quietly in awe, occasionally looking at each other with pure joy on our faces, but barely speaking a word, until both male and female flew off and out of sight.  This moment was certainly one of the (if not THE) highlights of this trip.
Another mile or so down the road and we were checking into the Savegre Mountain Hotel.  I have to admit, this place was a lot bigger than I expected (in terms of how many people it could accommodate) but they didn't seem to have any problems filling the rooms - there were several large groups staying there, from high school and college classes, to church groups, to birding tours.  After checking into our room, we headed back towards the dining room for lunch.  There was a small patio there near a nice flower garden and a single hummingbird feeder - but that feeder certainly was popular, both with the hummingbirds and with all the people watching it. Aside from the ubiquitous Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds, this feeder provided the opportunity to see a new group of hummers that we'd not yet encountered.  One of the common birds at this feeder was the White-throated Mountain Gem.  As with any of the hummingbirds, when the light caught it just right, the color simply blazed.

White-throated Mountain Gem

There were a few of both male and female mountain gems that visited, but they certainly were not alone.  Also coming to this feeder were:

Green Violet-ear

Scintillant Hummingbird

Volcano Hummingbird

Magnificent Hummingbird

The Magnificent Hummingbird was not a "life-bird" for us as its range does reach up into southeastern Arizona and we saw it there a few years ago, but we nevertheless enjoyed wonderful views of it, especially as this Goliath of a hummingbird - which can reach 14cm (5") with a 18 cm (7") wingspan! - dwarfed its cousins as shown by the above photo with the tiny Volcano Hummingbird.

After an enjoyable lunch on the patio with the hummingbirds (and chatting with another couple that also just checked in that we had seen at Rancho also), we made arrangements to join a guided birding trip the next morning and decided to walk around the immediate area a bit.  In the nearby flower gardens, we encountered several Yellow-thighed Finches:

Then we walked the road along the nearby stream.  I remember thinking that if we were going to encounter a dipper anywhere, it would be right there - then suddenly a bird flew past us low along the water and alit on a rock.  It proceeded to flit from branch to rock, seemingly catching insects along the way - certainly not dipper behavior, and also too small.  We hurried downstream to the next bridge as it was working its way along, and finally got good enough looks to confirm a Torrent Tyrannulet.

Pretty cool name for a pretty cool flycatcher, I think!

Heading back towards the room to relax a bit, we stopped by the gardens again to see what was about, and were rewarded with great looks at a steely blue-grey bird that I had hoped to see, but wasn't sure how well we'd be able to: a Slaty Flowerpiercer:

One of the reasons I had hoped to not only see this bird, but see it well, is that it seems to me a great representation of both the biological diversity as well as evolutionary adaptation in central America.  Take a good look at that bill of this bird (go ahead and click on the photo for a larger image).  You notice that it is a bit upturned and the upper mandible is longer with a hooked tip.  By now, you'll probably be able to deduce from its name that it used this sharp hook-tipped bill to pierce the base of a flower to get to the nectar within.  Many flowers in the tropics have evolved to have a longer tube-like or trumpet shape, and with their short bills, the flowerpiercers would have a much more difficult time at getting to the nectar than the nearby hummingbirds with their long straight bills and longer tongues. So they adapted to be able work around that little problem.  To quote one of my favorite living naturalists:
"It is called, accurately enough, a flower-piercer. The upper half of its beak is notched along its edge and hooked at the end. The lower half is rather shorter and very sharply pointed. The bird lands on or beside a tubular flower and snags it with its hook. Holding the flower steady in this way, it then stabs it with the lower part of its beak and flicks its tongue inside to steal the honey." Attenborough, D. 1995. The Private Life of Plants: A Natural History of Plant Behavior. pg 320

By now it was late afternoon, and we decided to relax for an hour or so in our room (and frankly, try to escape the loud teenagers that seemed to be all over the place that day), before stepping up to the Los Robles Bar for a few cold Imperials to celebrate a spectacular day of birding before heading in to yet another delicious dinner and dessert, then wrapping the day with last looks at the hummingbirds before the sun set in our little valley.