Costa Rica...a control from Canada, recaps and Standard Banding

Point Pelee on Lake Erie Canada to Tortuguero Costa Rica....This 1st year Veery became the first recovery of any species outside North America for Point Pelee Bird Obs....!!

The Veery was banded on 3rd Sept 2016 in Canada, a hatch year bird weighing 32.1g with a fat score of 1.
We recaptured the bird during Standard Banding at our STC site in Tortuguero on the Caribbean coast on 2nd October 2016, weighing 33.4g with a fat score of 2.

The Veery is a migrant though most of our work is providing data on resident species. Below a couple of recaptures of our more interesting and infrequently captured species. Two species from the Highlands...

This Rufous-browed Peppershrike was an adult when banded in March 2015, we recaptured this bird during October 2016, 19 months later.

We ringed this adult female Black and Yellow Silky-Flycatcher in September 2015. Delighted  to recapture her in October 2016.

Now from the Caribbean Lowlands, a Pale-billed Woodpecker....and what a handful..!

Weighing 232g, and with a 180mm wing these large woodpeckers are interesting to process. This is an adult female with band number 34, an old ring from before 2011 we are told. This is only the 2nd Pale-billled Woodpecker that we have caught, here a full picture of the bird we caught in 2012.

Still in the Lowland forests and a Hummingbird we don't see every year, a Band-tailed Barbthroat weighing 5.6g, and requiring a slightly different handling technique from the 'peckers above.

This adult male Black-throated Trogon was surprisingly a new bird at our only site where we catch this species. An interesting piece of data in itself.

Our final new species for our trip this year, a juvenile White-winged Becard.

Like the Brown-capped Tyrannulet we posted details of in October, a species of the canopy, so unusual to find one near the ground. This juvenile White-winged Becard was in a mixed feeding flock, mainly comprising of  resident Lesser Greenlets and migrant Chestnut-sided Warblers.

We leave Costa Rica tomorrow after our two months volunteering with  Costa Rica Bird Observatories.

No more sitting in mosquito filled banding locations, as Wendy above at our AERO site. Or dealing with net rounds in the Highlands at 2500m, where the effect of altitude hurts..!
Back to the Teifi next week to Redwings, a Welsh Winter....and plans to make for Costa Rica 2017.
(photos Wendy)