Sora in the... Street....!!

A 5am walk along Tortuguero high street on route to Parq - our banding site for the morning.
Something on the road in our path caught my eye....

A slight movement, the flicker of an eyelid and I quickly picked it up. By now the penny had dropped - an exhausted rail...hold on - I am in Costa Rica - an exhausted Sora Rail !!

A photo of the high street taken later.
Wendy and Debra were with me, a quick show to them and the bird was put into a bird bag to rest, ....and hopefully revive. 

 

With the banding site opened, time to see if our rail was in a better condition.  We were amazed to find the Sora was full of life.. pectoral muscles felt good, score 2/3.
A weight of 58g.- S & Sutch quote 65g, so the bird seemed in good  shape., with wings moving well.
We aged the Sora as an adult.......and off the rail flew then ran into the wet forest site.

Quite an amazing walk to the site, unlike the previous  three, each of which involve carrying eight newly cut bamboos for net poles.

On to banding...this first year female Canada Warbler, a nice one to catch as feather samples are required from this species to determine the origins of the population.

This Mourning Warbler, only our fourth, an adult female.

The favoured habitat of our Kentucky Warblers is our primary forest locations with denser and wetter understorey

One of our wide spread residents, spreading into regenerating forest is Western Slaty-Antshrike. This is an adult male...

The variety of insects we see is outstanding and most are as yet unidentified by us. Suggestions welcome! This colourful one seemed to be feeding on banana leaves.

Other wildlife is familiar to us like this House Gecko that chose to eat a mystery Dragonfly that Wendy was trying to photo!

We often have research assistants from our host bases helping us but we also have eco volunteers who are not researchers but who wish to give their assistance to the project for a short period. This week we have Debra from Pennsylvania assisting us and learning about banding.

Our last migration count of every day ends as the sun sets across the Tortuguero canal from our boat dock. Herons, Montezuma Oropendolas, Vultures, Swallows, Parrots and Nighthawks are some of the birds we see at this time of the day.