For you who are not “Birders” or persons who like to go out in the forests and find new birds, “lifer” is a new bird you see for the first time. In an earlier post I think I mentioned I had seen 4 “lifers” while at Hacienda Guachipelín – well . . . I was wrong! It is five.
I had not included the Stripe-headed Sparrow because I was sure I had a photo of one, but when I got home and checked it out, what I had from an earlier trip was a Black-striped Sparrow and not the Stripe-headed and you Costa Rica birders know that there is a difference! Thus meaning I got photos of 5 new birds added to my Costa Rica Birds gallery, bringing my CR collection up to 325 species, which sounds like a lot, but with nearly 1,000 species of birds in Costa Rica – I have a ways to go! 🙂
My 5 New Birds
All but the Western Wood-Pewee have been shared in other posts but in a different context. And the Wood-Pewee is simply not a good photo thus not used before. The linked names below take you to the eBird or Cornell Neotropical page on that bird if you want more information, plus I have added some of my own comments on each bird related to my experiences.
Lesser Ground Cuckoo
I now have a Lesser Ground Cuckoo gallery with several shots of this same bird! And photo gallery of the Squirrel Cuckoo, with even some in my yard, and I have seen and photographed the Mangrove Cuckoo twice (Rio Tarcoles & Caño Negro), as my only other cuckoos in Costa Rica, though I do have a poor photo of a Levaillant’s cuckoo in my Gambia Birds gallery.
White-fronted Parrot
There are so many parrots here and I have a lot in my gallery but still only about half of the ones in Costa Rica. There were few parrots in the two parts of Africa I visited and thus all my parrot photos are mostly in Latin America, including Brazil & Mexico. I may start going to CR places known for the species I do not have. But I now have added a White-fronted Parrot Gallery! And for those who know parrots don’t confuse this one with the White-crowned Parrot which I’ve seen in three places now.
White-throated Magpie Jay
I was in the only area of Costa Rica where this bird appears (Northern Guanacaste). The closest thing I have ever had like this beautiful bird is the Black-billed Magpie in the Yellowstone National Park in the states. Though both are named Magpie, they are quite different! And I now have a White-throated Magpie Jay Gallery added to my collection!
Stripe-headed Sparrow
This is the one I confused with Black-striped Sparrow and that link to my photo will show you the difference, mainly the body colors and the stripe through the eye, though similar as they are with the Olive and Green-backed Sparrows. And now I have a Stripe-headed Sparrow Gallery!
Western Wood-Pewee
Though it is almost identical to the Eastern Wood-Pewee, they are slightly different migrant birds appearing on our east and west coasts according to their name with the eastern being more broadly distributed even into the west as you will see with my photos of the eastern I found at Rancho Humo, both in Guanacaste on our west coast. And now my Western Wood-Pewee Gallery!
It is fun to see my collection grow!
“The sharp thrill of seeing them [killdeer birds] reminded me of childhood happiness, gifts under the Christmas tree, perhaps, a kind of euphoria we adults manage to shut out most of the time. This is why I bird-watch, to recapture what it’s like to live in this moment, right now.”
― Birding with Yeats: A Mother’s Memoir
¡Pura Vida!