Hummers in the rain

After leaving the Hanging Gardens we started the bus ride back to San Jose for our flights out the next day.  About halfway back we stopped at the Cocorro Hummingbird gardens.  It was raining pretty steadily as we arrived but the feeders were remarkably active.  Clearly we were in a different part of the country and a different elevation from where we'd been since basically all the birds were new. 

Almost immediately Mike spotted a Purple-throated Mountain-gem.  I had expected them to be a lot more common over our trip.  There were 1 or 2 males here and they didn't come in very often.

Green-crowned Brilliants were the dominant species.  The females and young males most notable feature was a white (or buffy) malar.

Despite the rain one of the males' gorget lit up showing where the name comes from.

One of the key species here was Coppery-headed Emerald, a bird with a super-restricted range, a narrow elevation band exclusively in northern Costa Rica.

The emeralds' small size made identification of the females fairly easy.

Green Hermit was at other end of the spectrum, huge in comparison...

The hermit and Violet Sabrewing dwarfed the other species.  Perhaps their size made them less maneuverable since they mostly stayed away if any of the smaller species were about, definitely the opposite from what I would have expected.

Finally a bird that you'll have to take my word is a female White-bellied Mountain-gem, I didn't see any males.  It didn't have the buffy underparts of the White-throated Mountain-gems we'd seen at Savegre.

The rain wasn't warm (and the camera had my raincoat).  The group lasted about 30 minutes before people started getting cold.  It was definitely a place that it'd be nice to see in sun.