Green Violetear on a routine trip to San Diego

Note the blue tail when you see the Green Violetear

I took advantage of a mostly dry day in this El Niño year to see if vehicles can now get down to nearby San Diego. After the excitement of the trek up the Turrialba Volcano earlier in the week, birding in my patch was expected to be perhaps less than thrilling. Surprise surprise! The porterwood hedge at Carlos Luis’s little house before the drop down to San Diego produced not only a female Scintillant Hummingbird (Selasphorus scintilla) but also a Green Violetear (Colibri thalassinus), who sat and preened for a good while. Plumage of males and females of this species is essentially identical. The photograph above is from Karel Straatman‘s collection of Costa Rican bird photos and clearly shows the main field mark, the violet patch behind and below the eye. This was only my second Green Violetear sighting but for me the first field mark was the lovely dark blue tail. The dry trill heard when it is in flight is also quite different from the sounds made by our local hummer, the Rufous-tailed Hummingbird. This particular bird exhibited strange behaviour, moreover, in that, when perched, it twisted back its head almost in a contortion, rather like a male Great-tailed Grackle during courtship.

This sighting encouraged me to walk all the way down to San Diego, where the massive mudslides have now been pushed aside, to try my luck further. Here is my species list for San Diego for today: