Ramblings

I suppose the highlights of the last week or so have been the two Yellow-browed Warblers that we've ringed on our Teifi Marshes scrubland site. This is the second one, ringed by Ryan yesterday:

Just as interesting to me have been the extraordinary influxes of Coal Tits and Great Tits to the reserve and to my garden, and they just seem to keep on coming.  Yesterday I got my first control Great Tit, so it'll be nice to find out how far that's come.

Also, I've been seeing one or two unmoulted juvenile greater coverts on a good proportion of these Great Tits, something that as far as I can remember I've (almost?) never come across before. Does this give a clue as to their origins - to me suggesting somewhere in the north of the European continent, or does it mean that they've come from very late broods?

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.

Teaching starts with a Tinamou

Another amazing start to a banding session here in Costa Rica.!!!

A young Great Tinamou, though the actual identification was confirmed from photos later.

The morning at Cano Palma continued with a good mix of residents and migrants. This is one species often heard in the forest..Chestnut-backed Antbird. This an adult male.

 Another adult male of a species not often caught was this aptly named White-flanked Antwren

This next bird is also a male but just a few red feathers give the clue to the final bright red head plumage of an adult male Red-capped Manakin

With several keen volunteers at Cano Palma the morning was a good teaching opportunity. Learning points for all of us when it comes down to the finer points of Empidonax Flycatcher identification.
The bird here was an Acadian Flycatcher

At our base at the Sea Turtle Conservancy today a morning of teaching again in a temperature of 32.5 by the end of the session.

 

 Bea from Chile here banding a Swainson's Thrush.

 More migrants than residents banded here today with Veerys, Swainson's Thrushes, Traills and Acadian Flycatchers, Prothonotory, Kentucky and this Chestnut-sided Warbler.

Of course the days aren't just about birds. Just a few of the many other creatures seen in the last couple of days...

 Bats at Cano Palma - these usually live in the boat dock but have moved to a nearby tree after having young

 a Blue Morpho butterfly just emerged in the toilet!

a colourful Grasshopper extracted from one of our nets

One of the many Cayman that live in the canal by Cano Palma station..

 and back at our base in Tortuguero our night security guards are experts at finding creatures of the night. Thanks Alfredo! This is a Red-eyed Tree Frog

and  this is a huge Cane Toad

A change in the weather tonight with a big thunderstorm. Hopefully it will be dry by the morning for a visit to our site near the airport. This Bare-throated Tiger Heron is often by the boat deck when we leave by boat to travel to our sites.

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.

Long-lived Long-tailed Tit

Yesterday on the Teifi Marshes Reserve I trapped a Long-tailed Tit that was ringed as a full-grown bird at the same site on 28th September 2008, so a few days more than seven years from first ringing, and the first recovery of this bird since June 2011.

According to BTO Ringing Recoveries data, the UK longevity record from first ringing is 8 years 11 months, and there appear to be only six records of birds older than ours. Typical lifespan is said to be two years.

Hooded, Kentucky...and forest creatures

Warblers are here.....

This juvenile female Hooded Warbler is our 3rd in four Fall seasons, and our first away from our Cano Palma site, Kentucky Warblers are far more numerous and maybe a winter resident ?

A change in the wind and some rain this evening, we are hoping - and expecting an upsurge in variety and numbers in the morning...

Our first Swainson's Thrushes this morning - with 7 captures. More no doubt tomorrow

This adult female Green-breasted Mango. The first that we have captured at a Tortuguero site.

Yesterday, our first visit of the season to Cano Palma  and we were greeted with enthusiasm by the team based here, another multi-national.... and multi-lingual challenge !

This Chestnut-backed Antbird ---the best, and barely out the nest.

Immediately banded and released, the adult male a retrap was captured too.

 This Streak-headed Woodcreeper, is the lowland relative to the commoner Spot-crowned Woodcreeper that we find in the Highlands..

Cano Palma....one of our best sites for frogs...

But at our Aero site this morning there were many lizards including this one with a blue tail that we still have to identify.

This rather large bodied stunning moth was also at our Aero - secondary forest site today

Hmmm....what species?

Many thanks to Bea fom Chile- our latest  banding assistant and photographer.