Band-tailed Barbthroat

How to find it

Look for flowers, not feeders. Heliconia patches and other flowering plants are where it is most likely to turn up. Learn the song before you go, since males sing from regular perches in dense understory and you may hear one first. Stay in the lowlands of the Caribbean side or the south Pacific. Be ready for tricky light: one photographer got a single usable photo before the bird flew off.

How to recognise it

Look for these marks:

Size: a medium hermit hummingbird, about 11 cm long.

Throat and chest: a dark throat that contrasts strongly with a bright orange-rufous chest. This is the quickest mark.

Tail: rounded, with white at the base and tip.

Back and face: bronze-green back, a dark ear patch and a dusky stripe on the cheek.

Bill: long and curved, with a yellow lower half tipped black.

What it sounds like

Recording: keesgroenendijk, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

The barbthroat visits scattered flowers rather than feeders, especially Costus, Heliconia and banana. It often pierces long flowers to reach the nectar, and it also picks insects and spiders from leaves.

The nest is a cup of fine plant material, hung 2 to 4 m up under a Heliconia or banana leaf. It holds two eggs.

Where it lives

It lives in the understory, at edges and in old second growth of wet lowland forest. It usually occurs up to about 600 m, and up to about 800 m on the southern Pacific slope.

After breeding, some birds, mostly youngsters, move uphill as high as about 1200 m. In Costa Rica it is a bird of the Caribbean lowlands, with records also on the south Pacific slope. It is fairly common in the lowlands of both coasts, but a rare sighting near Turrialba.

When to see it

Breeding runs February to May on the Caribbean slope and June to September on the Pacific slope.

Similar birds

Three other hermits can cause confusion: the Stripe-throated, Green and Long-billed Hermits. The barbthroat's dark throat against a rusty-orange chest, plus its rounded tail with a white base and tip, separates it from all of them. At a feeder near Turrialba, the only other hermits seen were the common, small Stripe-throated Hermit and the large forest Green Hermit, with the barbthroat a rare visitor.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

The Spanish name used in Costa Rica is Ermitaño Barbudo. Elsewhere it goes by longer or different names, such as Ermitaño Barbudo Colibandeado in full, and Colibrí Colirayada in Honduras.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it as a resident (R), and the IUCN classes it as Least Concern.

Photography tips

Wait at flowering Heliconia patches rather than feeders, and learn the song so you can find a singing male. Sunshine can be scarce in the forest, so good light is worth waiting for.