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

Purple-throated Mountain-gem in Costa Rica

Family Trochilidae

Purple-throated Mountain-gem

Lampornis calolaemus

In Spanish: Colibrí Montañés Gorgimorado

  • Resident
  • Regional endemic

Steep, broken cloud forest slopes in the central mountains, 1,200 to 2,500 metres. All year.

Where to see it

The male and the female look like two different birds. He has a metallic violet throat under a glittering green crown. She is tawny yellow underneath, with a mostly blackish face.

What they share is a pale stripe behind the eye, and that is the thread to follow. It lives in cloud forest, the wet mountain forest that spends much of its time inside the clouds, and it favours the steep, broken slopes. It is also a regional endemic, found only in this small corner of the world: Costa Rica and its neighbours.

Where to see it

Map of the places to see the Purple-throated Mountain-gem and the lodges near them
  • Hotspot page
  • Named place
  • Nearby lodge (numbers match the cards)
  • Tapantí National Parkaround Hotel Quelitales in Cachí, the lodge beside the park, whose own page names it among the birds to look for there.

Nearby lodges

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

  • 1
    Hotel Quelitales7.8 km from Tapantí National ParkSee the lodge
  • 2
    Mirador de Quetzales13.6 km from Tapantí National ParkSee the lodge
  • 3Photo coming
    Paraíso Quetzal Lodge14.7 km from Tapantí National ParkSee the lodge
  • 4
    Dantica Cloud Forest Lodge19.6 km from Tapantí National ParkSee the lodge
See all lodges in this zone →

How to recognise it

10 to 11.5 cm.

The male: forehead and crown emerald to bluish green, and a metallic violet or purple gorget, the patch of shining throat feathers. The female: throat, breast and belly tawny yellow, the face mostly blackish.

In either one, the mark that settles it is the stripe behind the eye, white to pale buff.

The song is high, thin and dry, a tumble of sputtering, warbling notes. The call is a sharp, buzzy zeet. A feeding female sometimes hovers against the leaves and beats her wings on them, which seems to flush out the insects she eats.

Where it lives

Humid montane forest and cloud forest, where it favours steep slopes and broken ground. In central Costa Rica it lives between 1,200 and 2,500 metres, through the Cordillera Central and the northern Talamanca, with another form in the Cordillera de Guanacaste in the north-west.

When to see it

All year.

How we know this 1 sources, each read on the date shown
  1. Wikipedia: Purple-throated mountaingem read 4 November 2026https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple-throated_mountaingem