2018/02 Costa Rica - Bird walk |
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Thursday February 22nd
We had a bird walk in the morning so we had to be out with the birds at dawn, about 6.30 am. It was still cool and misty, with tiny showers drifting through. 
There were about a half dozen others gathered but one fellow with bad knees backed out when he saw the steepness of the trails. While we were talking I spotted a coati bounding across the garden and I was a little faster with the camera this time; yes, I can certify 
that this is a coati tail.
Our guide once again was Catalina. She said the plan was to visit certain hotspots around the reserve where birds were known to gather or feed. We already had swallows zooming around the sky scooping up bugs. I commented that we’d seen none the previous afternoon, and Catalina said that was why we were out before breakfast. I was also surprised that they were finding 
enough bugs, because I hadn’t seen any.
This is the birding group at one of the hotspots, the ruins of what may have been their first greenhouse.
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Most of the hotspots turned out to be clearings, as those were the only places where we could see any distance. However, although we saw quite a few birds, they were mostly high in the trees and backlit so we have few pictures. Our first success was this Cherrie’s tanager, a relative of the tanagers we’d see in Minnesota summers.
This nondescript bird is a clay thrush, Costa Rica’s national bird. Catalina said that it was chosen as it sings a beautiful song during its mating season, a song that the country’s farmers use as a signal to plant their crops in time for the rainy season. She contrasted Costa Rica’s practical choice with those of its neighbours: Panama’s powerful harpy eagle and Nicaragua’s gaudy motmot.
We spotted the thrush under this enormous tree. Like many trees, its branches were covered by ferns and bromeliads and air plants; hundreds of them.
We found hummingbirds in the orchid house; violet sabrewings trapped by the mesh walls.
We took a look around the villa in daylight, finding this sculpture in the garden. There was no explanation but we hope that whatever it represents doesn’t happen while we are there.
We stuffed ourselves at breakfast, in my case mainly on fried bananas; we intended skipping lunch. The original plan was to rest until our scheduled nature walk in the afternoon, but it was too nice a day to stay inside, so we set off for a walk around the north end of the property, the Sendero Quebrada or Ravine Trail. It turned out to be a great choice.
We found the villa’s hummingbird feeders. It’s an artificial way to get hummingbird pictures but they tend to roost in the branches 
around, giving more natural photos.
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Hummingbirds (2.19) |
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There seemed to
be three or four species of hummingbird around; these are a blue-tailed and a couple of green-crowned brilliants, I 
think.
We also found some new plants on the day’s walks, more than enough to populate another composite picture below. Some we recognized: helliconias, orchids, poinsettia, even a banana flower over some red bananas, but most we did not.
We came out of the trail at the greenhouse where they grow the veggies for the restaurant.
This strange moth was at the lodge.