Since 2004 · Licensed by the Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT)

Gartered Violaceous Trogon in Costa Rica

Family Trogonidae

Gartered Violaceous Trogon

Trogon caligatus

In Spanish: Trogón Violáceo

  • Resident

Forest edges, river forest and shaded coffee farms, mostly in the lowlands. All year.

Where to see itTrips that find it

It nests inside a wasp nest. Or inside an ant or termite nest hanging in the branches, or, failing those, a hole in a rotten tree.

This is the small trogon of the forest edge. Look for it in clearings, in gallery forest, the strips of trees that follow a river, and in the shade trees over coffee and cacao farms. It is commoner in the lowlands.

Where to see it

Map of the places to see the Gartered Violaceous Trogon and the lodges near them
  • Hotspot page
  • Named place
  • Nearby lodge (numbers match the cards)

Nearby lodges

Within 20 km of a place on the map, in the same zone.

  • 1
    Rancho Naturalista0.2 km from Rancho Naturalista's reserve, above TurrialbaSee the lodge
  • 2
    La Selva Biological Station2.2 km from La Selva Biological Station, Sarapiquí (off the map)See the lodge
  • 3
    Talari Mountain Lodge9.2 km from Los Cusingos (off the map)See the lodge
  • 4
    Hotel Casa Turire9.6 km from Rancho Naturalista's reserve, above TurrialbaSee the lodge
  • 5
    Selva Verde Lodge7.5 km from La Selva Biological Station, Sarapiquí (off the map)See the lodge
See all lodges in this zone →

How to recognise it

About 23 to 25 cm, a little shorter than a sheet of letter paper. Start with the belly: bright yellow on both sexes, with a narrow white band across the breast just above the yellow. The female is grey on the head, breast and back, and her eye ring, the circle of colour around the eye, is broken rather than complete. The male's head colour on the Costa Rican birds is a guide's call, see To verify. It feeds by hovering in front of the leaves to pick off fruit and insects. The call is a long, fast run of hollow, falling notes: kyu-kyu-kyu-kyu-kyu.

Where it lives

Forest edges, clearings, gallery forest, secondary forest, and shaded coffee and cacao plantations. In Central America it goes as high as about 1,400 m, but it is commoner in the lowlands. The Costa Rican birds belong to a subspecies that runs from here through most of Panama into western Colombia.

When to see it

All year. It nests from February to June in Costa Rica.

Trips that find it

Tell us when you are travelling and our team in Costa Rica builds the trip around the birds you want to see.

Plan my birding trip
How we know this 1 sources, each read on the date shown
  1. Wikipedia: Gartered trogon read 4 November 2026https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartered_trogon