Fiery-throated Hummingbird

How to recognise it

About 11 cm. Male and female look the same, so there is only one bird to learn.

Start with the throat, orange in the middle and golden green at the sides. That is the mark that settles it. Then the supporting marks: a glittering royal blue crown, a violet-blue patch in the centre of the breast, and a tiny white spot just behind the eye.

It has no real song. What you hear is a nasal, squeaky kek, kek, kek in a fast run. It also drinks nectar through holes in the flower, made by bumblebees, by other small birds called flowerpiercers, or by itself.

Where it lives

Montane forest, cloud forest and the low, wind-cut elfin forest of the ridges. In the northern and north-central mountains it lives from about 1,600 metres up to the summits near 2,000. Further south, where the mountains are higher, it lives between 2,200 and 3,200 metres. San Gerardo de Dota, at about 2,200 metres, sits at the bottom of that southern band.

When to see it

All year. In Costa Rica its breeding season runs from August to January.