[I had some camera problems that day, but this bird is too stunning not to talk about.]
The Resplendent Quetzal, Pharomachrus mocinno, revered by the Aztecs and Mayas (think of the god Quetzalcoatl), is a shy bird that lives in dark, moist forests at altitude in the interior Cordillera de Talamanca of Costa Rica. The male is the reason that bird lovers come from far and wide to get a glimpse, and perhaps a blurry photo:
Look carefully above, and below, and you will see that its tail is quite a bit longer than its body!
The head, body and chest are iridescent green with a bluish sheen in some lights , and the belly is scarlet. You can just see the small crest.
Skutch (1944) described the male Resplendent Quetzal as “a supremely lovely bird; the most beautiful, all things considered, that I have ever seen. He owes his beauty to the intensity and arresting contrast of his coloration, the resplendent sheen and glitter of his plumage, the elegance of his ornamentation, the symmetry of his form, and the noble dignity of his carriage.”
Our guide the nature interpreter Johan Fernandez took this picture through his scope:
There should be two super-long tail feathers, but this guy seems to be regrowing one. They often get damaged during mating season, and indeed the sacrifice did not stop him finding a mate. They were nesting in a hollow tree trunk, and they took turns incubating the eggs. The male carefully leaves his long tail outside, so as to preserve the feather(s). This helps in spotting the nest site!
We hung around for an hour or so. Apparently he had been inside for 4 1/2 hours, so we thought perhaps his shift was nearly over. I got tired of tail shots, so I changed my settings to video to catch the movement of the tail in the wind, and lo and behold he abruptly stuck his head out. Here is the video; I have slowed down the final part:
The video stops suddenly, because I wanted to finish filming and instead take a close-up photo of his head. How foolish. If I had kept it running, I could have caught a video of him in flight. Still, you can see him looking around cautiously:
inching further out:
and then flying off in a turquoise blur:
The Resplendent Quetzal is classified as Near Threatened, but it can be locally fairly common. It is usually found in the canopy and subcanopy of undisturbed, humid, epiphyte-laden evergreen montane cloud-forest. They eat mainly fruit.
To ensure the survival of this sacred bird, killing one was a capital crime under the Aztecs (for better or worse, this is not typically amongst today’s conservation regulations). The tail streamers were plucked for tributes and headdresses, but the birds were then set free. Here is a 16th century Aztec hieroglyph of Quetzalcoatl, or Feather-Snake:
For more details, and a stunning photo, click on the story below.
https://datazone.birdlife.org/articles/the-resplendent-quetzal-in-aztec-and-mayan-culture
Eyes on the Wild 