Blue Ground Dove

How to find it

Scan open woodland edges, clearings and roadsides in humid lowland areas. Listen for the male's call from the treetops. Look for the pairing of a bluish male and a brown female, which often fly low through vegetation, so watch edges and clearings. Because it feeds on the ground, check quiet gardens too. A tour group found a singing bird near Esquinas and had scope views of it.

How to recognise it

This is a ground dove about 20 cm long, weighing about 72 g. It is larger and slimmer than the Columbina ground doves, and its tail is longer.

The adult male:

- blue-grey above, paler below

- greyish white fading on the face

- bold black spots and bars on the wings

- bare, olive green eye ring

The female:

- light greyish brown head, neck and breast

- ruddy brown back

- chestnut rump and tail

Young birds look like adult females.

What it sounds like

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

Behaviour and diet

It feeds on the ground, taking seeds, small insects and grit. You may see it alone, in pairs or in small groups, and pairs often fly together at low levels through vegetation.

The nest is a flimsy platform of thin twigs, 1 to 11 m up in a shrub, vine tangle, coffee bush or garden. The female lays two white eggs, and both sexes incubate.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica it lives from sea level up to about 1,200 m and is a resident across the country. It uses a wide mix of habitats: savannas, pastures, forest edges, cacao and peach palm plantations, old second growth, riverside forest and mangroves.

It is more common in humid areas, especially on the Caribbean side, and scarce in the south of the Pacific slope.

When to see it

Breeding in Costa Rica runs from February to October.

Similar birds

Compared with the small Columbina ground doves, this species is larger and slimmer with a longer tail. The female is most often mistaken for the female Ruddy Ground Dove, which is smaller and has blackish wing markings, while the Blue Ground Dove female has chestnut-brown wing spots. The male can be confused with Paraclaravis ground doves, including the Maroon-chested Ground Dove of Costa Rica's highlands, though elsewhere it is hard to confuse with anything else.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Ricans know it as Cocoha and as Tortolita Azulada, the name on the official list.

Status and conservation

The official Costa Rican bird list gives it resident status, and the IUCN lists the species as Least Concern.

Photography tips

An Osa Peninsula photographer shot a male in the late afternoon (16:51) at 1/1000 s, f/4 and ISO 800, in a lodge garden where the doves were feeding. The group kept moving, so a fast shutter speed helps.