There are fourteen species of Motmots in the world, six of which are found in Costa Rica. During our April, 2024 trip there were were able to observe only two species of Motmot: Lesson’s Motmot and the Turquoise-browed Motmot.
We were able to observe a Lesson’s Motmot our very first day there. We had lunch at the Hotel Bougainvillea in Santo Domingo and then wandered their 10-acre garden, which contains over 600 species of plants. This variety of plant-life attracts many birds (we saw 38 species – in a hotel’s garden!) and the birds are used to having people around. This Lesson’s Motmot perched up in a small tree and six of us surrounded it with our cameras.
Note that in the above picture one of the two racket-shaped feathers at the end of its tail is missing. It was thought that male Motmots preened their tail feathers to create the racket shape but further research showed that the feathers immediately above the racket are weak and fall off due to abrasion or during preening. In this case the entire racket has fallen off, but will eventually be replaced.
After observing the Motmot for a couple of minutes it flew down into a bush to feed on leaves.
Several days later we were near Carara National Park (on the Pacific coast) and had a couple of great looks at Turquoise-browed Motmots. One was found on the grounds of our hotel (Cerro Lodge) and the other was found alongside the road a mile down from the hotel. Here you can see both rackets are intact.
Our guide Mayer actually found a racket from a Turquoise-browed Motmot in the hotel parking lot – this told me this must be a regular occurrence and there were several motmots in the immediate area (the one pictured above still had two).
More Costa Rican birds coming soon!
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