Black, Blue..and going soft !

Going soft...out at 0445 for Dusky Nighjars and I thought it was cold. A short time later the first temperature reading of the day 10.6c....Oh !

Black-billed Cuckoo, a great find and a much wanted bird on some Costa Rican birders lists too.

The juvenile cuckoo was the star bird of my first morning banding with Yuly, my latest banding partner.
More about Yuly later. We were banding at INBio in San Jose, an oasis in the capital which is a Standard Banding site- CES style.

We were scheduled to be going to Tortuguero, but for scheduling problems we went back  to the Highlands for four nights. A day's banding at each of the three standard sites thus ensued. Quiet with low numbers captured but......

Yesterday Yuly returned from a net round with this little brown job...well 13.3g to be exact.

This a juvenile female Blue Seedeater.
The id seemed straightforward and the range and habitat helpful, but time required to really come to grips with it. Described in some literature as rare, completely off the radar and again on several Costa Rican birders wants list. Eats bamboo buds and keeps company with Black-cheeked Warblers and Yellow-thighed Finches - bread and butter birds to us !

Absorbed and struggling to believe...not for the first time this visit !

More straightforward and a recapture of a bird Wendy and I caught a month ago, a retrap then.

This an adult Louisiana Waterthrush.
We catch both waterthrushes and at Tortuguero we have several site faithful returning wintering Northern Waterthrushes. This the first site faithful returning Louisiana, first banded 29th August 2014 at the same site.

 White-throated Mountain-Gem - dare I say, our version of the Blue Tit.

Always around and usually captured daily, though perhaps not as numerous this year. As I mentioned in a previous post, juveniles of several species are in low numbers this year. The bird above is a moulting juvenile male, exactly the age we want to catch to help understand the breeding and moulting cycles.
Likewise this Violet Sabrewing...

A large hummingbird, c10g and this a moulting juvenile male.

Yuly and I move on tomorrow, the first bus at 5 or 6am. Then via Cartago, San Jose, Cariari, and the boat from Pavona....eventually Tortuguero tomorrow in the dark.

Yuly is from the Colombian Andes, and surprising to me feels the cold !!

Here in front of my beautiful fire, still wearing gloves...
Yuly's first degree is in Zoology specializing in Ornithology. She is now doing an MSc in Conservation and Conservation Management here in Costa Rica, and will be working with me until I leave in December.

(photos Yuly...or mine)