A few weeks ago, a neighbor sent us a short video that caught everyone’s attention. Hummingbirds are a familiar sight in Las Catalinas. They move from shrub to shrub among the flowering plants that line our streets and plazas, hovering just long enough to drink before flying on to the next bloom. This video showed something we don’t get to see often.
In one of the large planters in Plaza Mercado, settled between two branches, sits a tiny nest holding two even tinier eggs. Hovering over it is the bird who built it, a Cinnamon Hummingbird. You can take a look at this magical moment below.
The Cinnamon Hummingbird (Amazilia rutila), known in Costa Rica as colibrí canelo, is a bird of the dry Pacific lowlands, found from Mexico down through Central America to northwestern Costa Rica. Guanacaste is very much its home. It is easy to recognize once you know what to look for: warm cinnamon coloring from throat to belly, a bronze-green back, a rufous tail and a reddish bill.
For hummingbirds, raising a family is a job the female takes on entirely by herself. She chooses the spot, weaves the nest from soft plant fibers, lays two small white eggs and incubates them without any help. So the bird in our neighbor’s video is almost certainly the mother.
On a later visit to Plaza Mercado, the scene was different from the one in the video: the nest was still sitting between the branches with its two eggs, but the mother was nowhere around. Leaving the nest for short periods is a normal part of incubation for hummingbirds, since their rapid wingbeats and fast heart rate burn through energy so quickly that they need to eat often throughout the day. During these trips, the female drinks nectar for fuel and catches small insects and spiders for protein, which becomes even more essential once the chicks hatch and depend on her for every meal. Between feedings, she returns to the nest, settles over the eggs to keep them warm and stands guard until it is time to feed again.
Plaza Mercado is a place for morning coffee, conversations with neighbors and kids running ahead of their parents. Somewhere in the middle of all that, a hummingbird decided one of its planters was a good place to raise a family. We love that the landscaping we walk past every day is also habitat, and that living here means getting to watch moments like this up close.
If you pass by, enjoy seeing the nest from a respectful distance and avoid touching the planter or using flash photography, so the hummingbird feels safe coming and going. A warm thank you to the Las Catalinas homeowner who kindly shared this video with us, giving everyone in Town the chance to witness a moment that usually goes unseen.