Category: Birds

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Spanish Names Added to CR Birds Gallery

For the last two weeks I have been adding the Spanish name after the English name on each of my 337 Costa Rica Bird Galleries, one bird at a time! My source was the fairly new book Aves de Costa Rica, Guia de Campo by Garrigues and Dean which is available only in bookstores and lodges here in Costa Rica, while the English version, Birds of Costa Rica is available on Amazon.com as well.  This Spanish version is a translation of this older English version, Second Edition and is my first printed source of Spanish names for the birds here in Costa Rica. Nicaragua had one first that is bilingual!   🙂

I should add that for my English bird information I now use the more up-to-date Princeton Field Guide to Birds of Central America. My online source of birding information is Cornell’s eBird and Neotropical Birds websites. But even they do not have the Spanish names added to their articles. Wikipedia does but it is not specific to Costa Rica like the above book and my web gallery and I’m not sure of their sources.

Needless to say, this makes my web gallery of Costa Rica Birds one of the best online and the only one I know of that is bilingual, though I only have photos of 337 species out of over 900 here – so a long way to go!   🙂

“The presence of a single bird can change everything for one who appreciates them.”
― Julie Zickefoose

¡Pura Vida!

 

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Chachalaca

I possibly have more photos of this species of bird from my yard than from any other location, though I have seen them all over Costa Rica. It is a large chicken-sized bird that usually moves in flocks, but this one was solo at breakfast this morning in my Guarumo or Cecropia Tree (Wikipedia article).

When together as a flock they chatter a lot and thus the fun nickname here of “Chachalacas” for a group of people chattering or all talking at the same time.  🙂

There are two types in Costa Rica, this Gray-headed Chachalaca (link to Neotropical Birds site) found only in Central America from Honduras to the beginnings of Columbia, and the rarer Plain Chachalaca found here only in parts of Guanacaste (our Northwest Province) which I am yet to see or photograph.

On the Neotropical Birds site be sure to listen to their calls which is what wakes me some mornings!   🙂   And for more of my photos of this bird, both in my yard and other Costa Rica locations, see my photo gallery Gray-headed Chachalaca.   Another one of my tropical friends here!   🙂

A chattering Good Morning from Atenas, Costa Rica!

¡Pura Vida!

🙂

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Toucan Rescue Ranch

png-logoOne of the things Heredia is know for is The Toucan Rescue Ranch, which is actually in a suburb, San Isidro de Heredia, which like so many other such places in Costa Rica was started not too long ago by someone dedicated to wildlife, and all the animals that recuperate from injuries or whatever to a level of independence are released into the wild.

After class today I had a quick lunch of something other than the rice and beans I’ve been having here 3 times a day and took a taxi to the rescue ranch for a pre-scheduled “Educational Walk” at 1:30 that lasted until nearly 3:30 and my taxi was waiting on me when finished. Plus a funny thing about the tour, there were 14 people on it with 5 of us from Atenas! Two retiree couples from Atenas were there, plus me. I have met both couples in the past but don’t really know them – another one of those “small world” kind of things!   🙂

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Our guide was a really nice & knowledgeable young man from Hungary (the country).

 

Birds at Toucan Ranch

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Other Animals

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Flowers

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San Rafael Church

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On the way back through the suburb of San Rafael de Heredia my taxista stopped here for me to photograph this Gothic architecture church building, second tallest in Costa Rica.

 

And of course I have a “Trip Gallery” of photos from this week, titled:

2020 February 22-28 — Heredia for Spanish Immersion

 

¡Pura Vida!

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Birds on Tarcoles River

Our trip to the river Thursday yielded more species of birds than any other of my now 9 trips on the Tarcoles River! I got photos of 35 species and know we saw several others, but I only count my photos!   🙂   And this was in less than 2 hours on the river! A good place for birding!

It has been a difficult and rushed job to get the photos ready to post while also getting ready for my trip Sunday to Heredia for Spanish Immersion! I’m only including one shot of each bird in this post, but for more of each bird plus crocs, other wildlife, and other photos, see my “TRIP GALLERY”  2020 Feb 20, Rio Tarcoles Birding Trip for more photos!

CLICK AN IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT

Rio Tarcoles Birds

 

“TRIP GALLERY”  2020 Feb 20, Rio Tarcoles Birding Trip

¡Pura Vida!

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Black Skimmer

My lifer bird this morning on a trip to nearby Tarcoles River was a Black Skimmer. Read an Overview about them on Cornell’s “All About Birds.”

I took two new friends from British Columbia there this morning and we saw way more than 30 species of birds and I think I got around that many photographed! I’m still working on the photos, but maybe a full report tomorrow.   🙂

 

¡Pura Vida!

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Country Lane Birds & More!

20200209_072404_001-A-WEBIn an earlier post I introduced you to the little 5 km country lane behind our Roca Verde development and along the stream by that cow pasture in front of my house. It is called Calle Nueva which would be simply “New Street” in English and the 2018 blog post was titled  Finishing the country road walk today . . .   Then later I added a photo gallery: Walking Calle Nueva Atenas 2018.    Same photos!

Yesterday I walked part of the road more slowly than I did with young man Jason Quesada back then. It was with another older person who is a birder from Canada! Totally different! We saw more than 15 species of birds just behind where I live and here are a few photos of some of them! Even got one lifer on this walk of about 2 hours, the Black-crowned Tityra, both male & female! CLICK A PHOTO TO ENLARGE.

And apologies for several washed out pictures with white sky. That was because I was not paying attention to details and accidentally turned the dial to “Manual” without setting the manual settings and wasn’t looking at the images on screen! Ugh! Sloppy old man!

Birds on Calle Nueva

 

Interesting Flowers on Walk

 

 

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Mountain Farm Vista on Calle Nueva.

 

Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong.

~John Denver

 

¡Pura Vida!

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Gray & Yellow Mornings

Gray-crowned Yellowthroat

Both yesterday and today I went out around my house looking for birds about 6:20 to 6:40 AM, before breakfast. Both mornings I found birds with gray heads and yellow fronts! Yesterday (before going to Bosque Municipal) I got distant shots of the above Gray-crowned Yellowthroat (link is to Cornell’s “Neo-Tropical Birds”) seen in the cow pasture across the street from my house, my first of this species here, though I got better photos at Curi-Cancha Reserve, Monteverde last year, also in a meadow. Check ’em out!

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Gray-crowned Yellowthroat (different photo) in cow pasture in front of my house.

Gray-capped Flycatcher

A more common or more frequently seen-by-me-bird is this common flycatcher which has gray & yellow coloring like the above but is much larger. To learn more about him from Cornell’s “Neo-Tropical Birds,” click this name link, Gray-capped Flycatcher or go see my Gray-capped Flycatcher Photo Gallery (better photos than this). There are around 50 different species of birds here labeled some kind of “Flycatcher,” so a lot of variety! And yes, they do eat flies and other insects!    🙂

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Gray-capped Flycatcher, in my garden, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica

 

“Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”

― Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds

¡Pura Vida!

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Bosque Municipal Atenas

Central Park is not the only park in Atenas! We have a sports park in front of the elementary school, a public soccer field separately down the street and a public swimming pool! I have shown much of the sports park and mentioned the others, but the most important one for me is one I had never entered until today – Bosque Municipal Atenas – Atenas Municipal Forest.

20200206_064512-A-WEBMy friend from British Columbia wanted to go and I always have, so we went together to our “nature park” or forest for birds this morning. It is five miles west on Ruta 3 at Vista Linda or the edge of Barrio Jesus, on the right-hand side of the highway with multiple signs and two entrances. The main entrance is near the second sign or further up the mountain at the big community soccer field across the highway from Vista Linda Restaurant & Bar. Just walk around to the other side of the soccer field. Our first taxi driver knew nothing about it but was glad for the $13 one-way taxi drive!   🙂   The taxi that picked us up was very familiar with it, meaning that some people are into nature and others are not!   🙂

Well, we went for birds, especially the Long-tailed Manakin that definitely lives there and we heard their songs many times (toledo, toledo, toledo) but never was close enough to one for a photo. In fact the above Keel-billed Toucan is the only decent bird photo I got with efforts at some tiny birds and a blurry Woodcreeper. Maybe next time!  🙂   BUT, we saw lots of butterflies and below are 5 species I got shots of, some are new species for me.

5 Butterfly Species

Trail-head Signs

I did not get shots of the two highway signs – sorry!

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One of many huge old trees in this dense forest.

See my Butterfly Gallery (nearly 100 species!) or other parts of Atenas in my Atenas Gallery.   Or just go for ALL!   🙂

And though I didn’t photograph any here, I have a gallery of my Long-tailed Manakin shots.

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.    ~Henry David Thoreau

¡Pura Vida!

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White-winged Dove Watching

This bird was watching me eat breakfast yesterday morning on my terrace. Learn more about the White-winged Dove on Cornell’s “All About Birds” website. One of many that frequent my garden.

“Birds are the eyes of Heaven.”
― Suzy Kassem

¡Pura Vida!

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02-02-2020

Just had to write this unique date down! It is one of the few dates that works for both Americans who write the month first and all the rest of the world who write the day first! Plus it just looks cool! All those twos and zeros! Say it like this:  “O-two O-two, two-O two-O”     🙂

POSTSCRIPT: Larry Yarborough wrote in the comments below what I did not know about this unique date:

FROM AXIOS:

Today’s date is a rare eight-digit palindrome (reads same, forward and backward), 02/02/2020 — the only one of its kind this century:
Aziz Inan, a University of Portland (Ore.) professor who has a website chronicling 500 years’ worth of palindromes, tells the Post about today’s rare configuration — where both MM/DD/YEAR and DD/MM/YEAR are palindromes.

“The previous eight-digit palindrome like this was 11/11/1111, 909 years ago. We’ll only have to wait another 101 years for 12/12/2121.”
? P.S. Today is “the 33rd day of the year, which is followed by 333 more days.”     ~Thanks to Larry Yarborough for sharing this Axios Post!

The feature photo is of the cow pasture and tree line along a little stream across from my house. This morning at 6 I decided to walk over along that tree line with my camera looking for morning birds – nada! Not a one! As has been the case the other times I tried that very “birdy-looking” area. The water in the stream is quite polluted (gray water from houses nearby) which may be the reason for no birds or it was windy this morning, though that time of year. And I’ve never heard of cows scaring birds! But not one bird over there! (Maybe snakes?) I do better just sitting on my terrace! Though walking uphill like I did yesterday is even better! I will do that more often!

The dove below was on the power line in front of my house and the shot of something burning nearby was the only photo I made from the cow pasture. Sugar cane farmers are burning the remains of their fields after the harvest this month or occasionally someone burns trash, though they are not suppose to in the dry season!  🙂   ¡Pura vida!

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White-winged Dove on power line in front of my house looking at the cow pasture.
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Someone burning something nearby, as seen from the cow pasture.

 

Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.    ~Khalil Gibran

 

¡Pura Vida!

02-02-2020