Worm-eating Warbler amongst the thrushes

New migrant species arrived in Tortuguero today on our last day of banding here including this rather delightful Worm-eating Warbler.

An arrival of migrants followed a change to unsettled and likely prolonged poor weather.
Here the storm clouds gathering over our boat....

At our site near the airstrip there is no shelter if it rains so as soon as the boat dropped us off yesterday morning the first job was to erect a shelter as our ringing base....
Hot, steamy and the insects love us under this....

The first bird of the day was a Gray Catbird, the first of the Fall, an adult as is often the case with the first arrivals. This bird with an interesting suspended moult ?

Catharus thrushes kept us busy...lots of Swainson's Thrushes with a lower proportion of Grey-cheeked and Veerys. The first Summer Tanager provided some variety. It was a young male with a small amount of red moulted through on his head.

 

Residents included White-collared Manakins, an adult male retrap for a change as we had only caught females until yesterday.

He was in moult. Look at the emargination on the outer primaries, and the shape of the notches. These enable the male to make noises with wing movements

 

Another resident banded was this Northern-barred Woodcreeper

Our careful studying of the tricky weather systems here paid off and we finished the morning without getting wet. Today started wet but after a delayed start we caught a good variety at our base at the Sea Turtle Conservancy. The Worm-eating Warbler was the highlight but also the first Black and White Warbler (in the Lowlands) and Red-eyed Vireo.

We will miss the variety of non bird species in this tropical climate - no Iguanas wandering around the Teifi Marsh when we are ringing!

And where else could you come out of the shower to find a crab wandering past!

We are leaving on the 5.30 am boat tomorrow and travelling to the capital, San Jose ready to band in INBio Parque where we started our adventure 3 weeks ago. Then on Sunday off to Madre Selva in the Talamanca Mountains for our second visit of this trip.