One aspect of bird photography that I love is the fact that my observations are useful. Tools like eBird mean that every time I upload a checklist or media item I’m contributing to a corpus of data that is used to help conservation efforts and further our understanding of the natural world. Admittedly my observations of a Clay-colored Thrush (Costa Rica’s abundantly common national bird) probably aren’t contributing much but Costa Rica is home to over 100 endemic species and many of them are little understood because they’re infrequently seen and difficult to photograph!
Methodology
I wanted to make a list of which species are most lacking in photographic records in the Macaulay Library/eBird (the world’s premiere ornithological Library). There are over 46 million photographs in the Library as of April 2023. Just over 670,000 of them (about 1.5%) of them were taken in Costa Rica. For simplicity’s sake, I decided to only compile a list of the endemic species to Costa Rica, using the 106 species listed in the official list of the Asociación Ornitológica de Costa Rica. I wanted to do all of the birds found in Costa Rica but eBird’s API wasn’t playing nice with the Python script I tried to write to extract the data automatically so I had to pull the numbers manually. I figured that the more range-restricted a bird is, the less likely it is to be photographed. Obviously this leaves out a few edge cases (more on that below) and I left out wideranging sea going (pelagic) birds completely but it should work as a general rule.
I purposefully decided to title this post the “least photographed” rather than “hardest to photograph” for a few reasons. For one, “hardest” is a relative term. Several of the most photographed endemic species are hummingbirds. They’re abundant and frequent feeders that photographers flock to, but that doesn’t make them easy to photograph by any means. Conversely, some of the least photographed birds are fairly “easy” to photograph if you can spot them, but they’re very hard to find!
The Numbers
If you want to dig into the numbers for yourself, I put them in a Google Sheet, sorted from least to most photographed (and I threw in the number audio and video records too). Here are a few of the highlights:
- Not surprisingly three of the top six entries are the Cocos Island endemics. But that’s kind of like saying the least photographed bird in the United States is only found in Guam. Technically correct but a bit misleading. So we’ll leave out the birds from this faraway remote island from the rest of the discussion. (And I moved them to the bottom of the Google Sheet to make it easier to look at the data.)
- The least photographed bird, with only 42 photos, is one I last tried (unsuccessfully) to photograph a few months ago. The Red-fronted Parrotlet. It’s Costa Rica’s smallest parrot and doesn’t spend a lot of time in one place. It’s actually an extreme altitudinal migrant. It’s been spotted as low as 500 meters and as high as over 3,000 meters of elevation. By far the best shot of this bird is the one taken by my friend and fellow birder José Orozco.
- The second least photographed bird, not surprisingly, is a type of Quail. The Black-eared Wood-Quail only has 60 photos in the Macaulay Library. Quails (and Quail Doves) are generally heard more than they’re seen. In fact, four of the top fifteen least photographed birds are Quails or Quail-Doves. Purplish-backed Quail-Dove (4), Black-breasted Wood-Quail (12), Chiriqui Quail-Dove (13). They’re also the family that breaks my assumption about endemics being the least photographed with the Tawny-faced Quail (ranges from Honduras to Ecuador) only having 85 images in Macaulay Library which would put it 3rd on the list for least photographed birds in Costa Rica.
- Another good example of much harder to find than it is to photograph is number three on the list, the Silvery-throated Jay. It only hangs out in forests above 2,000 meters of elevation and is a tough one to spot. I’ve yet to see this bird (although I’m planning to try to in about ten days).
- Much of the rest of the top ten least photographed birds present a different challenge. They go from hard to find but not so hard to photograph to not so hard to find but a royal pain to photograph. Birds that live their lives jumping around in shrubs and thickets are exceptionally hard to photograph. The remainder of the top ten are all shrub birds: Silvery-fronted Tapaculo (5), Costa Rican Brushfinch (6), Black-throated Wren (7), Thicket Antpitta (9), and Black-crowned Antpitta (10).
Outliers
Looking over the data also showed some interesting statistics.
- The one gap in the above list at spot number 8 is the Dusky Nightjar. It is one of two (or three, it’s complicated) entirely nocturnal endemic bird species along with the Bare-Shanked Screech-Owl. Given its nocturnal habits and limited range it’s a hard one to track down for a photo. You may remember it from my adventures looking for the highest elevation owl in Costa Rica.
- As a good indicator of the easier to find but hard to photograph comment above, all of the species mentioned above have nearly as many audio recordings as they do images uploaded. The Tapaculo actually has more audio files (144) than it does images (142). So while a widespread and easy to photograph species like the Hoffman’s Woodpecker (the most photographed endemic) has 80 photos for every audio recording (despite it being a very vocal bird) the top ten birds all have a ratio of about 1:1 images to audio recordings.
- Hummingbirds are hard to photograph well but also very popular photographic targets. As a result you have to drop all the way to 31st spot on the list before you find the first hummingbird, the White-tailed Emerald. And five of the top six photographed endemic species are hummingbirds.
- Jose Orozco (of the Parrotlet photo above) suggested two other birds that would top the list if I included non-endemics. Number two would be Gray-headed Piprites with only 60 images in Macualay Library. And the Violaceous Quail-Dove (another Quail!) has only 126 photos.