Trogons and Motmots, Costa Rica. 1/9-1/19/24.

The birding tour that Jose and I took with Costa Rica Focus was called, "Tracking the Trogons" and track them we did! We were able to see four species of Trogons as we journeyed from San Jose to the Arenal volcano area and then to the Monteverde Cloud Forest and, finally, down to the Tarcoles River. This was not the entire itinerary and, certainly, not the entire list of birds as my ebird count is at 245 species for this trip, and I counted carefully. Wow! The actual word, "Trogon" means "nibbling" and refers to the fact that these birds excavate holes in trees to nest, but the trees need to be soft or rotted as their bill strength is quite poor compared to a bird like the woodpecker. They also have the lowest ratio of leg muscle to body weight of any known bird, and are, therefore, not the best flyers. No matter, as their plumage is gorgeous! In order below from left to right: Black-headed Trogon, Black-throated Trogon, female Gartered Trogon (my favorite), male Gartered Trogon, and Slaty-tailed Trogon.

In this blurb, I am also including the colorful Motmots as we saw four species of them as well with their long and unique tail feathers. Motmots lay their eggs in tunnels excavated in shallow banks similar to Kingfishers and, in fact, they belong to the same family. I even heard one calling "Mot Mot Mot..." outside my room at Cerro Lodge. In order from left to right: Broad-billed Motmot, Lesson's Motmot, Rufous Motmot, and Turquoise-browed Motmot.