THE BARE TREE OUTSIDE OUR BALCONY is a favorite perch for the resident Hoffman's woodpecker and great-tailed grackle. It’s convenient birding for us when thunderstorms threaten another deluge and we’ve photographed streak-backed orioles, orange-chinned parakeets and rufous-naped wrens on the leafless branches.
Rufous-naped Wrens
Costa Rica has over 900 bird species. You can’t just sit around and wait for them to come to you so it was still dark when Connie woke me with a poke in the ribs. Contacts in, face washed, a brush of los dientes, travel cup of joe and camera in hand and we were on the road back towards Las Baulas Marine Park, hoping the second time would be a charm.
Crested Caracara
Connie spotted a crested caracara along the roadside a few kilometers shy of the park and we found a spot to pull over. Going from air-conditioning to 80% humidity plays havoc with camera and binocular lenses until they warm up—something we’ll have to get used to again. My new Sigma 150-600mm zoom lens magnifies 12X, which is even more than Connie’s 10X binoculars. It’s bigger and heavier than my old lens but the auto-focus is fast and the stabilizer works well. Any fault with the quality of the photos is mine, not that of the lens!
Turquoise-browed Motmot
Never-the-less we managed to spot 18 different species on our hilly, two-mile walk. No “lifers” but we aren’t expecting many. This is our third time in Costa Rica, after all. The birds of the day were turquoise-browed motmots with the black-headed trogon and squirrel cuckoo runners-up. The troop of mantled howler monkeys were a bonus.
Turquoise-browed Motmot
Black-headed Trogon
