Plain-capped Starthroat

How to find it

Start in Guanacaste, described as the sunniest and driest part of Costa Rica, where a guide lists this starthroat among top target species for the tropical dry forest. Santa Rosa National Park is named as a good spot for it and other dry forest birds. Because it follows a trapline, wait at a stop on its route, such as a stand of tubular flowers. Light from the side or behind you shows the throat colour best. Scan the tops of tall trees at the forest edge or in savanna for a perched bird, as it roosts on high, well exposed branches.

How to recognise it

Both sexes look much the same. Look for these marks:

A long, nearly straight black bill.

A white streak behind the eye.

Dark bronzy green upperparts, with a duskier crown that is less metallic than the rest.

A rose-red to orange-red throat patch, easy to miss in poor light.

Mostly dull gray underparts, with bronze-green flecks on the sides.

A wide white streak on the rump in the nominate form, the only form that reaches Costa Rica.

Length is about 11 to 13 cm. The white rump is a useful mark when the bird turns away from you.

Behaviour and diet

Nectar is the main food, and it also takes small insects and spiders for protein. It feeds on dispersed, long-tubed, nectar-rich flowers, visiting them on a repeated circuit known as a trapline, so it does not stay at one spot all day.

In Costa Rica it is solitary. It guards big, heavily flowering trees against any hummingbird, and males sometimes defend long-tubed flowers. Otherwise it flies between small scattered trees over wide areas. The nest is a shallow cup of pale plant down, decorated outside with bark bits and gray lichen, set near a branch tip in an exposed spot high in a tree.

Where it lives

In Costa Rica it lives in the canopy and edges of dry and evergreen forest. It also uses coffee plantations, second growth, dry scrub and isolated savanna trees. Local accounts add thorny woodland, gallery forest and semi-open areas.

Across its range it favors semi-arid to arid country, such as thornscrub, open dry woodland and thorn savanna, and generally prefers spots near a stream or creek. It occurs up to 1500 m across its range, but only up to 1000 m in Costa Rica. It is resident in the lowlands and foothills of the northern Pacific slope, along the Guanacaste range.

When to see it

Breeding in Costa Rica runs from October to January, and the nest is placed high in a tree.

Similar birds

Long-billed Starthroat also occurs in Costa Rica. It has no white rump patch and usually shows a brighter pink-purple throat. The Plain-capped has the white rump and a duller bronze-green crown, so check the rump and crown first.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Colibrí Pochotero is the name used in Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua. In Mexico the same bird is called colibrí picudo occidental, colibrí picudo or picolargo coronioscuro, and Panama uses heliomaster gorrioscuro. Pochotero points to the pochote tree (Bombacopsis quinata), a characteristic tree of Costa Rica's dry forest whose flowers the bird visits.

Status and conservation

The AOCR lists it as a resident (R), described as uncommon to fairly common in Costa Rica, and the IUCN rates it Least Concern.

Photography tips

Look up. It roosts on high, well exposed branches, so scan the tops of tall trees at the forest edge or in savanna for a perched bird. Keep the light to the side or behind you for the throat colour.