Sabrewing study

More hummingbirds from El Cocoro, leading off with the largest hummingbird in Costa Rica (maybe in all of Central America?), Violet Sabrewing.

It's an impressive bird.  This was the one Costa Rican bird that the kids knew about (from a WildKrats cartoon episode) that they wanted to see; you can see why.  Now technically they weren't actually there for this one with Hannah wanting nothing to do with another bendy road and Hazel still a little wiped out from her experience with Montezuma's Revenge, but I had another spot for them a couple days later.

Here's an immature male

It's reminiscent of a Blue-throated with the big broad tail and huge white tail corners.

Here's the female.

 ID points for her are the huge size, good-sized down-curved bill, and again the long broad tail.

This is Purple-throated Mountain-gem

 I've always found them less common than their higher elevations cousins, the very attractive White-throated Mountain-gem, so it was nice to see another one here