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This is a blue motmot in Monteverde. Blue motmots are native to Costa Rica. They are about 45 cm (18 in.) long. They have what is called a bare shafted racket tip at the end of their tail, as there is a short portion without feathers, then a round feathered part at the very end, making a shape similar to a tennis racket. They make a hoot sound and eat insects and small lizards. As you might guess from the shape of their head and their posture, they are a relative of the kingfisher. I will post photos of kingfishers in the future.
As I trust you will agree from this photo, blue motmots are beautiful. I would like to tell you that we ventured deep into the cloud forest to get this picture or that we took this photo from the canopy walkways that I showed in my posts a week or so ago. But I must confess that this picture was taken from the convenience of our hotel room at the Monteverde Lodge.
8 comments:
It is beautiful, looks like it glows.
What a lovely bird!
Great catch from the hotel room!
I think this was my favorite bird when I was visiting Costa Rica. they are so unusual.
Thank you for the above comments about my blue motmot photo. It was indeed a treat to find hiim jumping around from branch to branch outside our hotel window. I have another photo of him when he was on a branch below the window and I was able to take a photo of him from the above. It is unusual to get a top-down angle to photograph a bird.
Unfortunately, he was there for only an instant and the photo is not in sharp focus because the camera focused on the branch right above him rather than on the bird. By the time I switched to manual focus, he had darted off to the branch where I got the photo posted today.
In the future I might post the slightly out-of-focus photo anyway, as it shows the color of the top of his head and back and the bare shafted racket tip tail.
Gorgeous bird!
"Endless Vacation" magazine has a nice article on Costa Rica in it in lateast issue.
Louis
Anonymous (Louis),
Thank you very much for letting me (and others) know of the article in the current issue of Endless Vacation magazine. I just read it on line. The article focuses on the Guanacaste region (the northwest Pacific area of Costa Rica in which Tamarindo is located).
The article recommends and describes some of the same places that I have shown and written about on this website, such as: Rincon de la Vieja Nat'l Park; the adjacent Buena Vista park (zip lines); Palo Verde Nat'l Park wildlife boat rides on the Tempisque River; Guatil pottery village; Monteverde cloud forest; and, of course, the Pacific beaches.
That is just too beautiful. Kingfishers I know but not this little sweetie.
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