Costa Rica Day 1

Back in Costa Rica!  And, appropriately enough, it is raining.  :-)  Well, I'm going out anyway!  We flew in last night and stayed overnight at Hotel Bouganveilla, which is the first-night hotel for tons of birding tours.  The room was fine, and I went out to the garden to reintroduce myself to the birds here.

Sadly as it was raining, the pictures are mostly rubbish. But I did see a gorgeous pair of pairs of Baltimore orioles, several hummingbirds (including one exciting and chattery 4-bird chase), some cute sparrows that I can't remember enough about to ID, and a few warblers.  Including my very first sighting of a rufous-capped warbler, who is gorgeous but apparently a bit camera-shy.  Also blue-grey tanagers, a few white-winged doves, and this guy:

Buff-throated Saltator

 One of the hummingbirds slowed down briefly - just long enough for me to get this picture - and then it was off again!

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

 Jack came down and came into the garden with me, and he found this gorgeous motmot.  What a great way to start the trip!

Blue-crowned Motmot

 Below the mot-mot, this hummingbird was doing some serious preening.  You know it's a good time when your directions to one bird are, "Okay, start at the motmot and go straight down and a tiny bit to the right."  :-)

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

 Then it was up for breakfast and packing, getting ready for the drive.  We were incredibly lucky, we told our driver that we like nature and especially birds, and it turns out that he loves birds also.  First stop, Crocodile Bridge, which lived up to its name.  There were at least a dozen lounging about and more in the water, here is a small sample:

Crocodiles

 We also saw a snowy egret, an anhinga, great egret, black-necked stilts, some sort of sandpiper, and this gorgeous fellow:

Purple Gallinule

 There were swallows flying just over the water, it was interesting to get this angle on them from the bridge.  I don't know what kind of swallow it was:

Mystery Swallow

 Next stop, scarlet macaws!  The driver spotted them flying ahead of us, and we pulled over to try to take some pictures of them flying.  No dice.  However they landed near us, which made the pictures much easier to take!  These two are involved in something that looked like a dispute of some sort.  It went on for a little while.

Scarlet Macaw

 Then one of them leapt over to another branch, and it was apparently settled.

Scarlet Macaw

 Too busy being gorgeous to squabble!

Scarlet Macaw

 Next stop, a pond near the roadside that hosts many herons etc.  My first look at a tiger heron!  This one was right by the fence, it was great.

Bare-Throated Tiger Heron, crest raised

 This tree had lots and lots of birds in it.  Clockwise from top left there is a wood stork (well only half of it made it into the frame), a roseate spoonbill, a little blue heron (just to the right and a tiny bit down from the anhinga), anhinga, and a snowy egret.  Later the tiger heron was in there too and I didn't see it fly it, so it might be hiding in there somewhere, but I don't see it.  It was quite a tree!

Wood Stork, Roseate Spoonbill, Little Blue Heron, Anhinga, Snowy Egret

 This yellow-headed caracara was hanging out there under a tree, too far away for a decent shot, but it left and flew quite close to us.  The wing pattern doesn't look quite right for yellow-headed caracara to me, but the underparts were all white, white head and neck, dark line behind the eye....... I certainly could not find a better candidate.

Yellow-headed Caracara

 We looked back over our shoulders and a group of about 6-8 scissor-tailed flycatchers were making they way through!  The rumors are true.  Costa Rica is heaven.

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

As we were leaving, a pair of roadside hawks came over and stubbornly refused to get into any light that was remotely useful to a camera.  Next time, guys........

 Back to the drive, where we made good time until I spotted this kingfisher on a cable over a river.  It never moved so we never saw its front, so I don't really know if it was a ringed kingfisher or a belted kingfisher.  It struck me as quite large, but of course that's not super-reliable.  Look at that beak!

Ringed Kingfisher or Belted Kingfisher

 At last we made it to our resort.  We got up to our room, plopped our bags down, and settled into the deck chairs.  Our first visitor was this guy - a nice welcome!

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird

 Then the tanagers started coming by.

Blue-grey Tanager

 Not a great picture of the woodpecker, but how often do you get a shot of a woodpecker with the ocean in the background?  Almost never!  Awesome!

Red-crowned Woodpecker

 Jack spotted teeny somethings, which turned out to be yellow-crowned euphonias.

Yellow-crowned Euphonia

 See?  It's a full yellow cap, not a half cap.  Thanks for showing us!  What a great first day.  :-)

Yellow-crowned Euphonia

Hey, at least it's not raining!

Today was another AMNH winter walk and apparently we used up all of our good weather last week.  Ah well, at least it's not raining like it was yesterday!  The good news is, the walk was great and my rain boots are champions - 4 miles of city walking last night and who knows how far today, and they were totally fine.  Yay for good rain boots!  The bad news is, the light was terrible.  It wasn't raining, but it was ~almost~ raining the whole time.  Just a bit on the dismal side........

OK, yeah, anyway, on to what we actually saw.  Right away at the upper lobe we saw a whole bunch of northern shovelers, showing off their technique in a whirling mass on the water.  Also several were roosting on some branches, and this one intrepid couple came right over.

Northern Shovelers

Coots!  Hahaahahaha, every day is better with coots.  This is the best picture even though the coot is disappearing into the bridge.  They are hilarious to watch, it was great to see them up close.

American Coot

Into the ramble, where we saw lots of red-bellied woodpeckers, a few tufted titmouses, a few white-breasted nuthatches, house sparrows, and white-throated sparrows.  Here's one red-bellied woodpecker that we got to watch for a while - they are so pretty!

Red-bellied Woodpecker

This picture contains a white-breasted nuthatch.  Yes it does, look again!  :-)

White-breasted Nuthatch

Over to the feeders, which were pretty active.  Here's my favorite picture of house finches on the feeder.  It totally looks like there's a mirror and it's only one bird, or it's some sort of trick.  They are so in sync!

House Finch

This downy was extremely happy about this pine cone feeder.

Downy Woodpecker

Up past maintenance meadow and over to the area where the varied thrush was last year, and I found this fox sparrow.  My first time finding one myself!  I'm pretty sure I've seen them before when someone else pointed, but once I find a bird myself I really learn it in a different way.  They are so much more orange than I expected!

Fox Sparrow

Fox Sparrow

We went by turtle pond which had some lovely buffleheads.  We got to see them fly which was great, they look so little and frantic when they fly.  We tried to make them hooded mergansers but they stubbornly stayed buffleheads.  Then we headed back to the museum to try to see the hummingbird.  By the time we got there most of the people had peeled off, but those who stayed got a treat with the hummingbird.

Rufous Hummingbird

We were looking at it perched nearby and it flew over even closer to us, visiting these flowers.  A guy said, "Well, it can't get much closer than that!"  Of course the hummingbird took this as a challenge and came closer.  I said, "Say it again!" but repeating the phrase had no effect on the hummingbird.

Rufous Hummingbird

Then we turned around and the guy who charmed the hummingbird said, "Oh, that's why the blue jays are upset.  They are mobbing that red-tail."  And sure enough, there was a red-tailed hawk in the tree in the museum's courtyard.  As the other person from the walk said, "The smallest bird and the biggest bird - great finale!"

Red-tailed Hawk

AMNH Winter Walk with Paul

What a day!  It was crazy gorgeous weather - 56 and sunny.  Wait, what happened to winter?  We started out going up towards the theater and found this Eastern towhee along the way:

Eastern Towhee

We also saw a Cooper's hawk flying over briefly, I guess it saw my camera and took evasive action.  We swung by turtle pond, where there were buffleheads!  

Buffleheads

Continuing on, we came to a little area with lots of birds.  White-throated sparrows, this white-breasted nuthatch:

White-breasted Nuthatch

A red-bellied woodpecker was flying all around us, calling, zipping from tree to tree.  Then we saw this red-tailed hawk watching over the area with interest.  I wonder if the hawk made the woodpecker nervous?

Red-tailed Hawk

A bunch of tufted titmouses (titmice?) came through, they are so cute!  Seeing a titmouse always cheers me up.

Tufted Titmouse

As we were trying to follow the red-bellied woodpecker, this brown creeper came over to distract us:

Brown Creeper

This yellow-bellied sapsucker along with a downy that was too fast for me convinced us that this was a popular location with woodpeckers!  Finally we moved on to the reservoir.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Grebe!  This pied-billed grebe might look like she's flirting with me, but she actually seemed to shift nervously away.  So pretty.

Pied-billed Grebe

Ruddy ducks!  A few beaks are turning blue.  I hope they stick around until we get to see some ~really~ blue beaks, they are hilarious and awesome.  I mean, who wouldn't want to see a cute little duck with a blue beak?!

Ruddy Duck

Shovelers!

Northern Shoveler

Hooded merganser!

Hooded Merganser

Coot!

American Coot

Yes, it was a good day at the reservoir, that's for sure.  After that it was back to the museum, where we stopped off to see the hummingbird.

Rufous Hummingbird

The whole walk was delicious!  :-)

Rufous Hummingbird

Are we sure it's winter?

This afternoon was about 60 degrees and sunny.  Amazing!  How could anyone possibly resist walking through the park?

I started by Hallett where I had a nice view of the juvenile red-headed woodpecker.  There was one dead stump of a tree that was apparently made of woodpecker bait.  First a red-belly was on it, then a downy, then the red-head came over.  The downy left but the red-belly stayed:

The red-belly is in gorgeous light but the red-head was in the shadow, I wish they had switched a few times. They were both there for a few minutes, and then the red-head flew off.

Around the pond I went, stopping briefly to admire one of the wood ducks:

Up towards the boathouse and the ramble, with a quick break to admire these yellow-bellied sap suckers:

Look at that yellow belly - it ~does~ exist!  :-)

Into the ramble where there were lots of crews doing lots of work.  And this Cooper's hawk was right by a large portion of that work, seeming completely undisturbed by it:

Another birder pointed it out to me, I would have walked right by it.  I actually did hear a squirrel alarm call, but I figured the guys working had freaked out the squirrels.  They actually had more sense than I gave them credit for!

It was a great day to walk through the ramble, not nearly as crowded as I had feared, except of course for the work crews.  But I'm so happy to see them, hopefully the rest of the ramble will open up again soon!  My next excitement was this gorgeous red-tailed hawk at the upper lobe:

Yep, enjoying a snack.  I keep trying to make it a blue jay but I really don't know what it is.

On the way past the lake on the way home I saw one more hawk, making it a hawk trifecta!  This one was pre-snack, and a titmouse voiced its disapproval with surprising bravery.

The hawk did not seem to notice.

And back home I went, tired and happy.  :-)

Duck Day!

Today I met a friend in the park and we walked around the reservoir looking for fancy ducks.  I sort of started without her though, because I went by the pond on my way up there and saw that there were three male wood ducks there!

Male Wood Ducks among Mallards

They have one lady friend.  Good luck Honey.......

Female Wood Duck

Stopped by the see the red-headed woodpecker, who is getting a tiny bit of red.  And for some unknown reason a blue spot.  Weird.

Red-headed Woodpecker

Going through the ramble I saw this Cooper's hawk, just, you know, hanging out

Cooper's Hawk

Then it was reservoir time, and fancy ducks abounded!

Bufflehead!  There were a few buffleheads, and we even got to see a group of about 8 of them flying.  They are so funny!

Bufflehead

Shovelers!  A bunch of northern shovelers were there, mostly sleeping.

Northern Shovelers

Then we saw this Cooper's hawk fly in and went over to check it out.  Maybe it wanted a duck.  Pretty optimistic!  

Cooper's Hawk

Coot!  Last time I came up the coots stayed quite far away.  This time this coot came right over, apparently they are adjusting to being fed by tourists.  They have quite a head-bob when they swim, they do look a little crazy........

American Coot

Gadwalls!  To me these are the most elegant ducks.  I mean, if Frank Sinatra were a duck, I really think he would be a gadwall.  Don't they just look like they are dressed for a nice evening out at the opera, with a string of pearls and cufflinks?

Gadwall

Merganser!  This is the female hooded merganser, busily swimming along while being gorgeous.

Hooded merganser

This is the male, busily evading my camera's autofocus while being gorgeous.

Hooded merganser

It was a cold day but a great day for ducks.  Then we celebrated our ducky success with cocktails.  Yay for outings with friends!  :-)