My three prior trips to Costa Rica have all been mid-winter, generally between late January and mid February; our trip in April meant that some of the birds making altitudinal movements would be in different places.
Brown Violet-ear was an apparent example. In 3 trips I've never seen this species, though a couple people on one of the trips glimpsed one at Rancho Naturalista. In spring, quite to my surprise, this short-billed bird was just about the most common hummer at Arenal.
As far as hummingbirds go, this is no
White-throated Mountain-gem,
Fiery-throated Hummingbird, or even
Green Violet-ear. That being said, the bright beard and ears on a plain bird are fairly unique
They shared the somewhat paler tail base with their Green cousins.
This was the first clear lifer of the trip; I'd glimpsed a bird I thought was a Scarlet-thighed Dacnis the day before, but doubts started to creep in the more Red-legged Honeycreepers I saw (despite the number of honeycreepers I've seen), but maybe I'd get another chance...
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