Costa Rica: The birds are hiding from me!

I woke up early this morning not to the sound of howler monkeys (although I did hear them later, they were not particularly loud) but to the sounds of birds!  There were birds singing everywhere, with songs that my beginner ears have never heard before.  Unless I forgot.  but I really think they were new to me.  They sounded so vivid and close that I actually peeked out the curtain above my bed, half expecting them to be all lined up there for me, but alas, none were visible there.  I put on some pants and my binocs and went out onto the porch, where I though I would see them for sure.  And although I continued hearing them all around, I couldn't see anyone!

Finally I spotted someone - an American redstart.  Female.  Yes, I came all this way, and here was my big morning greeting.  I got some Diet Coke.  I gave it a minute.  I went back.

And saw a mystery warbler!  I saw this guy (and one other) several times, each time it was fleeting and just teasing me, really.  Black upperparts, bright (seriosuly bright) underparts.  Sometimes wtih a yellow cap, sometimes without.  Okay, I'm checking the book now......   I don't see it under warblers.  I was colored just like a thick-billed euphonia, but I thought it had a more warbler style beak.  Wait!  Could it be a flycatcher?

Okay, the one with a cap is probably a thick-billed euphonia, there's just nothing else in the book it looked like.

The one without a cap is probably a common tody-flycatcher?  Maybe?  I've been through this whole book now, and that's my best guess.

I finally saw a buff-throated saltatore, and thought I had good pictures, but I have lost them somehow!  Boo!  I saw this guy several times over several days, I can't believe I ended up with no pictures of him at all.  It's really unfortunate, because he's gorgeous.  Frustrating!

Anyway, moving on......  next was the male American redstart.  And a chestnut-sided, and a yellow.  It was actually pretty funny.

And a summer tanager!  yay!

Some sort of woodpecker was too fast for pictures.

And a hummingbird of some sort blew through.

And this wood creeper!

I was starting to get quite a bit happier, bird-wise.  Then something big flew in.  Something big and dark, followed by something else big and dark.  Two black vultures were in a nearby tree!

They preened, looked around, and moved to a closer tree.  Then an even closer tree!  They were quite gracious in allowing pictures before they took off to find breakfast!

After the vultures left I watched the warblers some more and had more Diet Coke until ......

this black-striped sparrow came over.  Definitely the prettiest sparrow I've ever seen!  Then a male black-hooded ant shrike ant shrike streaked past, as did a gorgeous large blue butterfly.  That must be the one Brooke said she wants to see!

Looking towards the main building I saw this grey-necked wood rail come out for a few seconds and then duck back in!  What luck!

Then this interesting fellow (actually a few of them) were in the tree right over my head.  They did not seem super excited about pictures though.  No great shots but hopefully I'll figure out what they are!

Could they be golden hooded tanagers?  The head looks a bit dark on this one but maybe it's a youngster?  That's the only real possibility I see in this book.  Okay, golden hooded tanagers!

OK, Brooke is awake and we're headed for breakfast.  On the way this flycatcher asked for a few shots.  Okay, buddy, now you're famous!

I think breakfast was the first time I saw the Cherrie's tanagers.  Or was it before?  Anyway, they are gorgeous.  Never got a decent shot of the male, I did get some eventually of the female.  Beautiful!

After breakfast and before our noon massages, I of course went back out on the patio.  Toucans!  I think my exact words were, "I see a toucan!  I'm not even kidding!"  There were two fiery billed aracari, who wanted fruit more than they wanted to avoid pictures, but it was a close race.

And then a chestnut mandibled toucan came over to chase them away!  Hahahahahaha, it was awesome!

So, it's now day two in Costa Rica and I've already seen the scarlet macaws and the toucans.  Still on the list - blue-crowned mot mot, hummingbirds, and sloths.  :-)

Oh wait - what's that over there?  Hummingbird!  I believe (although really it's not a good enough picture for ID) this is a purple crowned fairy.  At least, of all the ones in my book in this region, this is the only real candidate.  Yay!

Oh, an iguana got up into the top of the tree across the way.  Pretty impressive!

And wait - what's over there?  An oriole?  Hahahaha, that's sort of surreal!  Yep, it looks like a Baltimore oriole!  Hello old friend!

Somewhere in there we had our massages and then started happy hour a bit early.  With Doritos and vanilla vodka.

Oh, did I mention that after our massage we saw hummingbirds outside the spa?  Looked like white-necked jacobin.  And I saw a banana bird briefly, much less friendly here than at that beach park in cayman.  Anyway, we were living the life in Costa Rica, Baby!

Costa Rica: Why did I do this all in one day?????

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.  But doing all of the travel (JFK to Miami to San Jose to Rancho Pacifico) in one day was pretty grueling.  Even though the first class seats went pretty much flat, my scarf was the absolute perfect airline blanket, everything went smoothly, by the time we arrived it felt like about 3 AM even though is was only 6 PM!

Anyway, we saw a lot along the way.  After landing in San Jose I started seeing vultures out the airplane window, I couldn't tell if they were turkey or black.  Once we got in the car and started seeing more of them, they were mostly black, although we did see turkey later.  Costa Rica has plenty of vultures!  Black everywhere, and plenty of turkey mixed in.  They claim to have other kinds, but those are the only ones I saw.  I saw so many of them I didn't bother taking pictures.  Well, a few, but really not many.........

We stopped at two places along the way.  The first was a river that had a zillion crocodiles (ok, more like 15, but still) and a snowy egret completely ignoring them.  I found a green heron hiding a little ways up the river bank and was quite pleased with myself.  It's my favorite heron!  There were great-tailed grackles everywhere.  The females are not black!  That really threw me.  And then, as we were leaving, scarlet macaws flew overhead!  It was amazing.  Sadly, although I remembered to get my camera out of my bag, the battery was still resting comfortably inside a hiking shoe inside my suitcase, so there are no pictures of any of this.

Our second stop was at a beach overlook, and this time I had my camera fully functional!  The first bird I saw was, of course, a yellow warbler.  It is totally warbler city here, I saw them everywhere!  It was really funny to see them here, I think of them as NY birds, and it took my brain a few minutes to fully accept the situation.  Yes, I know, they only migrate through NY to get here, so it should not be a surprise at all, plus it was in all the books, but still......

Then came this pelican, flying along like a refrigerator with oddly functioning wings.

He totally dive-bombed the water and got a fish!  It was awesome!

After he ate it, he went on his way down the beach.

That was about it that day.  We drove on and on, until after dark, and went to the store on the way to our villa.  We remember Pringles but totally forgot milk which was actually our highest priority.  Well, I mean, besides the vanilla vodka.  That we remembered.  :-)  Then dinner (which was nice but long, it seemed like it just took forever) and falling over into bed.

Welcome to Costa Rica!

Once around the pond

Today Jack and I decided to take a short walk around the pond.  It was pretty, and we saw the usual suspects - cardinals, blue jays, all of those guys.

The only surprise was a trio of house (I think) finches in a tree by the ice skating rink.

Also a couple of fly-overs by a single red-tailed hawk.

A nice walk, not great pictures, but a nice walk nonetheless.  :-)

More ducks and a grebe

Another pretty day!  Back to the reservoir, to see what I can see.

On the way walking over, I saw this thrush who seemed really determined to get into a pictures.  It saw me coming and flew down, landing quite nearby and showing off.  He still has some things to learn about posing though, he still moved way too quickly.  :-)

Also there were some white throated sparrows, here's one enjoying some berries.  I don't know what's up with his beak.  I read somewhere that more birds are turning up with deformities in their beaks, probably due to environmental problems, probably human caused.

Once at the reservoir, I saw lots of ducks!  Here's a gorgeous gadwall, looking incredibly sweet as she tries to hide behind this inadequate branchlet.

Here's a bufflehead, I still love them!

The numerous ruddy ducks sometimes come over and make sure I get pictures of them.  They are so cute and sassy!

Here's a female hooded merganser, loving her crest, as well she should.

And here's a male hooded merganser, flirting with me and making sure I'm watching.

Here's the mighty hunter with a little..... crawfish?  Something along those lines.  Hahahahaha, his crest is going crazy when he shakes that thing around!

Here he is gliding regally away.

And sailing off into the sunset.  Not really, but I do love the light in this picture, it just looks magical to me.

And here are two pied-bill grebes!  They are really small, and shy, it took a while for them to be comfortable enough to come into the open even a little to get pictures.

Once again on the edge was a kinglet, only the ruby crowned female this time.

And I finally saw this northern shoveler before heading home.  Hahahahaha, they crack me up.

All day there were lots of blue jays - I guess it was a bumper crop this year!  I saw several of them foraging on the ground, often with starlings and/or juncos.  The pictures were not spectacular though.

Duck season is back!

Today Jack and I took a walk around the reservoir, hoping that we would see some different kinds of ducks.  We knew it was a little iffy because the marathon was today, and they were coming down the east side of the park quite near the reservoir, so there might be a crowd from that.  But since it was on the east side it didn't block our access, so we decided to go for it.  So glad we did!

There were about 5 or 6 buffleheads, cruising around and diving a lot.  They are sort of hard to get pictures of, they are so focused on diving!

There were several ruddy ducks.  This one came over to say hello, and show off her diving skills.  I guess she saw how the bufflehead dives delighted us!

This turtle was a holdout sunning on the side of the reservoir, I don't really know what was going on with him.  It's rare for me to see them there, although I'm not there in summer very often so I can't really be sure.  It looks like his shell is peeling and in bad shape.  That's can't be good for a turtle......

There were a few (I think 3) gadwalls gliding.  They declined to turn into the beautiful light, so I only got crappy pictures.

There were about 5 or 6 hooded mergansers, at first they were a ways away, but somehow Jack convinced them to come right over and hide in the brush by his feet.  3 of them came over, one male and two female.  Here's the male tucked in, taking a bit of a rest.  Hopefully this year I'll get a good shot of one with the hood deployed, it's so cool!

This northern shoveler teased me for a long long time, just floating along all tucked in.  He finally opened up for a very brief paddle, then tucked in again.

As were continued walking along, Jack spotted a few kinglets at the water's edge!  This golden crowned kinglet was quite happy to be photographed and gawked at.

She seemed actually to revel in the attention!

This ruby crowned kinglet was a bit more reticent, at least when it came to pictures.  They were a joy to spend some time with!

AMNH Thursday Walk

with Harold, Tom, Christine

white crowned sparrow

couple of flycatchers (alone)
couple ybss (alone but tried to show people)
one red-bellied wp (other people saw this one)
phoebe (Tom explained)

upper lobe
bridge - on trees on big lake side, thrush in the brush and then on a branch in the tree
trees on lobe side, kinglet briefly, then it took off
several robins, a catbird or two

mulch path
more thrushes

towhee on branch

tupelo meadow

dark eyed junco in grass, fence, etc
white throated sparrows
song sparrows
chickadees on fence, tree, etc

off on my own to find woodpeckers
dead squirrel
tufted titmouse
redstart?
redbelly

back with group

feeders
white breasted nuthatch on tree by us
chickadees on feeders and everywhere
various sparrows
downy
Dan came over and told us about the tree at the point, it's still busy

off on my own, just some thrushes
I missed a hawk fly-through!  followed it a bit, didn't see it

Tom had to go, I took people over to The Tree
ybss, kinglets (both), yellow rump, possible parola, female black throated blue, someone claimed a possible cyt but i didn't see it
wood duck

walked Harold and Eleanor back to the entrance
a bit awkward