The Green-crowned Brilliant of the cloud forest

Featuring the first of many posts to come from my trip to Costa Rica back in February and thought I’d share one from the very beginning of the trip and my first time in a rainforest. I’ll be showcasing posts either focusing on specific species, encounters, or the diverse range of wildlife photographed within one of the many ecosystems this amazing Central American country has to offer.

After dropping off my bags I started a long hilly hike through the small town of Monteverde and after photographing my first hummingbird which was a Canivet´s Emerald by the side of the road I made it to the edge of the Cloud Forest and into a nice spot with small shrubs, flowering trees and nectar feeders, below the canopy. The sounds and action of several species of hummingbirds all at once is certainly something special to remember and of course plenty of these Green crowned Brilliants (the other species will be featured in more upcoming blogposts).

For the most part, it was just a case of picking a spot and waiting for the hummingbirds to drop in. Individuals would often choose the same branches to land on so it was quite predictable, which helped massively. There was a lot of chaotic action and certainly a hierarchy happening between them and their chosen feeding patches. Often they’d land on the branch for just a few seconds at a time, wiz off to chase a competitor or quickly take in some nectar and return, then repeating the process.

The Green crowned Brilliants appeared to dominate this feeding area in terms of numbers, along with Violet Saberwing and Lesser Violetear and several other species in the mix would join briefly or hang around the edges.

I really enjoyed playing around with the angles and getting the bokeh coming from the trees in the background, even messy spots within the bushes could be nice for framing images.

Male and female Brilliants have different plumage, females with lighter green iridescence and more paler and speckled front, whilst males are overall darker and have quite strong and striking purple and light green on their throat and forehead. Mostly this iridescence on the head was visible from very slight angles and was hard to pick out all the time as seen from most of these images.