Turquoise-browed Motmot

Eumomota superciliosa

eBird describes the Turquoise-browed Motmot like this:  Spectacular motmot of tropical lowlands, mainly in drier areas. Favors dry forest and edge, semiopen areas with scattered trees, gardens. One of the more conspicuous motmots, especially in spring, when often perches on roadside wires and on open branches. Plumage distinctive, with turquoise brow, turquoise-blue wings and tail with big rackets. Nests colonially at cenotes (sacred wells) in some Maya ruins of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico; motmot nests are burrows dug in banks, like a kingfisher.

The Birds of the World website introduces the Turquoise-browed Motmot with this descriptive information:  The Turquoise-browed Motmot is surely one of the most flamboyantly plumaged of a remarkable family, and it is sufficiently distinctive from other motmots to be afforded its own genus. Given its relatively small range, in the Yucatán Peninsula of eastern Mexico and northernmost Guatemala, and on the Pacific slope of Middle America, from southern Mexico south to northwest Costa Rica, it might seem remarkable that as many as seven subspecies are generally recognized. Virtually all of them have largely olive-green underparts with a cinnamon or rufous belly, and a darker reddish patch on the mantle, but the most eye-catching features are the turquoise flash in the flight feathers, the similarly colored eyebrow contrasting with the black mask, and the long graduated bright blue tail, which has the central feathers twice as long as the rest. Although they are reduced to mere shafts over more than half their length, they are ‘capped’ by black-tipped turquoise rackets. The dark bill is relatively long and slightly decurved.

I met and photographed my first Turquoise-browed Motmot on the afternoon of February 10, 2023 while taking a boat ride on the Tárcoles River in Costa Rica.  Seeing this spectacular bird was certainly one of the highlights of our day.  This bird was also very cooperative, and didn’t seemed bothered as our boat manuvered ever closer.