Pura Vida - Costa Rica

We have returned from the Highlands to San Jose from where we are taking a two day birding break to La Fortuna on the Lowland Caribbean slope.
A few species to finish our two months of birding and banding for Costa Rica Bird Observatories.
Where migrants meet residents in the Highlands

Flame-throated Warbler, a resident.

An adult male Golden-winged Warbler, a migrant. Always amazing to see the species above together in the field or in a mist net.

This Gray-cheeked Thrush a scarce bird outnumbered by the Swainson's Thrushes here at 2400m.

Plenty of pollen on this juvenile Mountain Gem sp, but this season the Highland's shrubs seemed to be later in flowering and fruiting.

The smallest Hummingbird  species we ever see - this a 2.3g adult female Scintillant. The eight-ish species of Hummingbirds that we find around our Highland station really are like the Tits at home in Wales.

A male Lesser Violetear, previous name Green Violetear, a very vocal species.

A juvenile Slaty Flowerpiercer, a species often in combat with the hummers at flowers.

Both Wendy and I gave talks on behalf of Costa Rica Bird Observatories, the BTO and the San Vito Bird Club and helped at the VIth Partners In Flight Conference in San Jose, where we met some of the main Pan American researchers from both the academic and observatory world.

The theme of Wendy's presentation.

We led bird walks for 5 mornings in the local park, managing to find a total of 53 species by day 5. Following the conference Eric and Laura, researchers from Mexico joined us for two days at Madre Selva.

We were also joined by fellow Brits for some pre-breakfast banding...Paul and Rachael Eele, pictured  above with their guide.

A juvenile Barred Forest-Falcon.

An adult Yellowish Flycatcher, two species banded after Paul and Rachael left us....but Paul did process a Ruddy-capped Nightingale-Thrush that we had banded in October 2012.

Common Chlorospingus - formerly Common Bush-Tanager.
Six years ago on our first visit these were more common than their close relative Sooty-capped Chlorospingus, then for the mid years the reverse true and this year a rise in the Common Chl.
All great population study stuff....

 Finally a couple of our less numerous Lowland Caribbean forest Woodcreepers

A Plain Brown Woodcreeper at our Parque Nacional site, our first since 2012

This Northern-Barred Woodcreeper, the second largest Woodcreeper in Costa Rica.

We have nearly finished our two month spell with Costa Rica Bird Observatories having renewed old friendships and gained new friends and contacts in the Pan American birding scene. We have seen an amazing variety of species as on our previous visits. Our thanks as ever to Pablo Elizondo and CRBO, also to San Vito Bird Club for their hospitality and banding experience.

Richard and Wendy

Serenaded by Fruitcrows

A quite un-believable start to our standard banding session at our Parque Nacional site here in Tortuguero this morning. Very quiet for migrants with only one Swainson's Thrush....but....!!

The first bird we extracted was this male Royal Flycatcher, only the second that we have ever seen on our six visits to Costa Rica.

This fine start was followed by two adult female Black-crowned Antshrikes...both of which were recaptures. One female was banded before 2012 and the other likely banded in 2014, nice ageing data !

All the Hummingbirds that we caught this morning were Long-billed Hermits except this Band-tailed Barbthroat.

Wendy working on the forest floor towards the end of the session in 30°c of humid forest heat and with many interesting biting insects.

Today was a very good session with no rain interruptions and by the end of the morning we had also captured three migrant species, an American Pygmy Kingfisher and a White-collared Manakin.

In total today's effort resulted in five new birds, three recaptures and five Hummingbirds.
Our banding in Costa Rica is usually filled with exciting species, but not numbers. I am emphasising this in response to questions received. The diversity is immense but the numbers captured are quite likely well below what you would think.
Whilst banding we were serenaded by Purple-throated Fruitcrows directly above one of the nets. Two Chestnut-backed Antbirds sang all session. Great Green Macaws flew overhead and higher still Black and Turkey Vultures, with Magnificent Frigatebirds gliding around.

Yesterday we were affected by rain, but we did catch some migrants with five species of Flycatcher - including five Great Crested Flycatchers !

We also captured a couple of  Red-eyed Vireos.

Bi-coloured and Chestnut-backed Antirds were the highlights at our Cano Palma site on Friday....

Surprisingly both these Antbirds were new rather than recaptures.

At Cano we also captured three species of migrant Thrush, including our first Wood Thrush of the Fall.
Two species of Hummingbird, including an unusual one for us, a female Crowned Woodnymph and this fine adult male Red-capped Manakin.

We don't very often catch raptors, so our second ever Semiplumbeous Hawk was a welcome chance to study raptor ageing, this apparently an immature.

In summary 16 captures of  9 amazing species at Cano Palma.

Tomorrow morning we catch our boat to the standard banding site Aero. This site is maturing secondary forest and understorey. Slowly some forest species are moving in eg, Black-crowned Antshrike, but tomorrow there should be some interesting numbers of migrant Flycatchers....
The picture shows Wendy banding at the Aero site in September 2013, a year when early morning falls of Catharus Thrushes were regular.

Richard and Wendy

In isolation, ringing above the storms....

We have returned today from the Highlands in Costa Rica, a 4wd journey via back roads to bypass the sometimes now non existent Pan-Am Highway. We managed 8 days of standard ringing since the storms, though isolated until today.
We are still finding new features in the avifauna of our Madre Selva site after many visits over the last 6 years. This fine adult male Spotted Wood-Quail, not a species we readily catch though common in the dense low cover of the Highland forest floor.

Spangle-cheeked Tanager, again a high elevation speciality infrequently caught but a core species of the roaming mixed species flocks. Often a couple of Golden-browed Chlorophonias are with the Spangle-cheeks, the Chlorophonias a species we have never been able to study.....yet

Sooty-capped Chlorospingus - often the leaders of the mixed flocks and a good vocalist to guide us.

Flame-throated Warblers are our second commonest resident warbler in the Highlands.

Antagonist of the smaller Hummingbirds, the Slaty Flowerpiercer.
This adult male - slightly leucistic and more importantly a bird we first ringed in 2014 and we have recaptured once a year on our Fall visit in each of the last 4 years.

The Highlands are full of Hummingbirds, maybe the commonest family of birds represented here ?
Here the delicate processsing of a stunning Fiery-throated Hummingbird.

The equally brilliant and iridescent Green Violetear, recently re-classified and another endemic to the Highlands of Costa Rica and Panama.

Chestnut-capped Brush-Finch, the most common species of Brush-Finch we capture. We caught a female with a brood-patch score 4, and a female Large-footed Finch too with bp4. Both species should have finished breeding months ago.

A couple of our most common migrants to finish this visit.
Swainson's Thrush, extremely common in the Lowlands and we find lesser numbers at the high altitude. We were delighted whilst birding early this morning before leaving to see 16 feeding in small groups and moving through. A migrant Olive-sided Flycatcher was a new species for us in the Highlands this morning too.

Behind Wilson's Warbler, Black-throated Warbler is the most abundant migrant warbler, this looking like a 1st winter male but what of the next bird.....

Clearly more Black-throated Green Warbler than Townsend's Warbler, but is it showing hybrid features, the black in the crown looks....??  We see and photo adult male Townsend's Warblers at our Highland sites each year.

A nice glossy capped male Wilson's Warbler...

At our Home banding station (as 6 years ago) a very powerful external security light came into use after the storms and the moths attracted added to the Highland experience !

This rather tatty Silkworm moth perhaps the largest of several large species attracted.

Finally a picture to help explain our isolation above the storm.....
A total of 78 landslides in the two directions - on the Pan American Highway not all quite as bad as this one.

Tomorrow we are off to a dry Tortuguero in the Caribbean......

Richard and Wendy

San Vito, a few more highlights.....

Following on from the last blog from San Vito, just a few more interesting species that we ringed before heading back to the Highlands....

This is a fine adult male Slaty Antwren, we captured a juvenile too. This is a species not often caught but hopefully numbers will increase as the secondary growth matures developing the understorey which the species favours.

Sulphur-rumped Flycatcher:- What bristles .....!!
The previous blog posted below discussed the identification of Black-tailed Flycatcher and Sulpur-rumped Flycatcher. Again biometrics were important in the identification, and the photo just about shows the small dark area directly below the eye.

Kentucky Warblers feature in our posts from Costa Rica over the years, this bird particularly exciting as a recapture returning to spend the winter here.

LOOK....at my spadebill.....!!

 A close up of a tiny Flycatcher - the White-throated Spadebill

This is the Spadebill found in the San Vito area, one of three species of Spadebill in Costa Rica and one of the 70+ species of Flycatcher found in Costa Rica.

We must finish with a thanks to the San Vito Bird Club, particularly Alison and Greg for hosting and helping our visit become a banding success, and to our assistants Alamo and Wilburth.

We captured 223 birds in 6 visits to the 3 standard sites. Each site has been studied since 2004, and shows population change as the habitat regenerates from redundant coffee plantation. Many thanks to the owners of the sites, Alison, Gail, Lydia and their staff too.

Rich D and Wendy J

Colours of southern Costa Rica

We are four days through six days of banding at our three standard banding sites in San Vito in the high valleys of the Coto Brus very close to the border with Panama.

This visit follows our visit last October, and a visit by our colleagues at Costa Rica Bird Observatory this March. Visits - though less frequent follow a similar protocol to our CES back home on the Teifi.
Now follows some of the more colourful and less often captured species. This Bay-headed Tanager was in fact the first one we have captured, this a hand painted adult...!

We catch c40 White-collared Manakins a season at our sites in the Caribbean Lowlands, this a fine adult male Orange-collared Manakin- the allopatric species of the southern Pacific Lowlands and foothills, we catch around 6 per year.

A couple of Tanagers species now.
This fine adult Golden-hooded Tanager, a bird we have only caught in pairs

unlike the Silver-throated Tanager, which we have encountered in small flocks, 9 being the maximum. The flocks being made up of various aged birds.

The White-tipped Sicklebill is a large Hummingbird and difficult to see. Note the white on the head and crown which is pollen dust, picked up as it feeds on tubular flowers like the Heliconia species.

The head of a Blue-crowned Motmot, a large very bright species with a deeply serrated bill. A species we hear regularly and often see around our bird table too.

Colourful words here -- the grey headed race of the Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush, the Catharus thrush species of the middle elevations, and quite a common species.

We find two further Manakin species in our study area, the Blue-crowned Manakin and the White-ruffed Manakin, below the adult male. Adult males of all Manakin species are hard to find, and make up barely 15% of Manakins caught.

Slate-throated Redstarts are one of the few species that we find in both our Highland and San Vito sites. A classic species of the mixed flock, including North American migrant Warblers.

We found this Black-tailed Flycatcher in our study area where the near identical Sulphur-rumped Flycatcher is the more common. On the simple biometrics of weight, wing and tail length these features support the identification.

Not a colour in his name !
But a tiny smart Flycatcher  - the Scaly-crested Pygmy-Tyrant.

We found none of these c8.5g wonders on our visit last year but we have now found 3 on this visit.
What other changes will we find in our ever maturing study sites in San Vito.....