How many hummingbird species are in Costa Rica? The short answer is around 52. The longer answer involves rare vagrants, a species not seen since before the atom bomb, and “the greatest ornithological mystery in Costa Rica”. The simple answer is that there are 49 definite resident hummingbirds, 1 migratory resident (Ruby-throated Hummingbird) and a very rare vagrant, the Rufous-crested Coquette. This final one was last spotted near Cartago in 2021.
That gets us to 51. 52 and maybe 53 are more complicated. The official list doesn’t include the Guanacaste or Alfaro’s Hummingbird (Amazilia alfaroana), which is known from a single specimen and is thought to probably be extinct, if it ever existed. Or it could be a hybrid whose collection location was mislabeled. The most recent study points to it being an extinct species but the results are far from conclusive. Hopefully, genetic testing technology will get to the point where the specimen can be analyzed well enough to sort out this mystery.
That gets us to the last outlier – the White-bellied Emerald. Despite not having been seen in at least six decades it was still on the list as a possible resident species. It was initially spotted in San Jose around the turn of the century and collected by Cecil Underwood in 1897 (female) and 1902 (male). Those initial specimens are now part of the Bangs Collection at the Museum of Comparative Biology at Harvard. Sometime between 1911 when Melbourne Carriker published “An annotated list of the birds of Costa Rica including Cocos Island” and 1964 when Paul Slud published “The Birds of Costa Rica: Distribution and Ecology” another three sightings were made in the central and southern parts of Costa Rica. The exact dates are unclear but Stiles & Skutch (1989) lists them as in the “early 20th century”. That probably puts the last sighting sometime before World War II.
That changed on May 21st, 2024 with photographs of a White-bellied Emerald spotted in Boca Tapada. Initially spotted by Lifer Nature Tours owner Juan Diego Vargas on May 10th, he was uncertain that he was correct on the ID. Further attempts at locating it on May 11th proved unsuccessful. On May 21st another attempt yielded photos and the first report of this Mexico to northern Nicaragua dwelling hummingbird in nearly a century. If not for the car being at the mechanic I was ready to jump in my car and drive the 90 minutes to go look for it the same day.
Between work and car maintenance, I had to wait until Friday morning after I got off work. Much as I’d love to turn this into some epic adventure, bushwhacking through the jungle to find the bird, I spotted it within five minutes in some flowers right by the side of the dirt road. A bit anticlimactic, I know. However, photographing and filming it was another story. Hummingbirds are always a challenge to photograph as they flit here and there with lightning speed. And this is compounded when it’s not an alpha species so often gets chased off by larger or more aggressive species like the Rufous-tailed Hummingbird. After a couple of hours I managed to get some photos and a cool video of it flying and feeding in slow motion.
With this unlikely lifer in the books, I’ve now seen 47 of 52 hummingbird species in Costa Rica. I’m only missing the occasionally vagrant Rufous-crested Coquette and three species that are only found in the south Pacific part of the country far away from where I live.