The great green macaw's breeding season starts in December and ends in June in Costa Rica, and from August to October in Ecuador. In Costa Rica and Nicaragua it usually nests in the most common of the largest trees of the area, "Dipteryx oleifera", which are used for nesting 87% of the time in one 2009 study which looked at 31 nests. Other trees used were "Vochysia ferruginea", "Carapa nicaraguensis", "Prioria copaifera" and an unidentified species. Older studies have also recorded it nesting in "Albizia caribea", "Carapa guianensis" and the afore-mentioned "Vochysia ferruginea". Other species are used in Guatemala. The trees used are generally quite tall, on average 32.5 m tall, but reaching to 50 m, and with a diameter at chest height of 75 to 166 cm. The nest cavity has no specific orientation. The cavities are usually found high up in the trunk, near the crown of the tree. Such cavities were formed 87% of the time by a large branch breaking off the trunk in the crown of tree. Pairs have sometimes been found to nest in the same tree as other pairs, with a tree found with three active nest cavities at least twice. The scarlet macaw has the exact same nest preferences, and the two species compete for nesting cavities where they co-occur. In a few instances the two species have been found nesting in separate cavities in Costa Rica and Honduras. In one case the nests were found in the same large dead tree in a clearing in the forest, which contained two nests of this species, one nest of the scarlet macaw, and numerous holes containing nesting "Psittacara finschi" parakeets - all these animals apparently tolerating each other.