Male Resplendent Quetzal

Parque Nacional Los Quetzales

Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno). This male quetzal is just growing out his long "tail feathers" that will be their maximum length in May or so. He and his mate have been busy making a nest in a tree where they are hollowing out a new nest. Taken at San Gerardo de Dota, Costa Rica, at the Quetzal Education Research Center field station operated by the Biology Department of Southern Nazarene University, Bethany Oklahoma. They are frugiverous swallowing the fruit whole and later regurgitating the large seed.