One last look

One final day in Costa Rica, one final vista across the glorious forest that cloaks much of the mountains around the town of Monteverde. It makes my soul happy to know there are still such extensive wild places left in the world.

Abundance

One of the things that's most impressive (and most important) about the tropics is the incredible abundance and diversity of life. Every square inch of everywhere is covered with something: plants, mushrooms, lichens, dying leaves… Here's a rock along one of the trails at Santa Elena National Park. We got to study it for a while while waiting for the Three-wattled Bellbird (which was bonging and bonging and bonging from a nearby perch just out of view) to make a reappearance, and I must say, I was particularly impressed by the ferns; a six-foot bank nearby had 8-10 species!

The buttresses of a huge nearby tree were equally thick with growth, well up the trunk.

Black and white

Most things in life aren't really black and white -- except when they are, like this Black-and-white Owl, which we spotted today in the middle of a bustling town. These owls have been there for years, putting up with car horns and barking dogs and the talking, laughing, shouting people who share their square-block park. It amazes me how many people immediately start looking up as soon as they see a group of birding tourists approaching with binoculars and telescopes; they want to be the one to point the owls out to us. It's equally amazing to me how many people have never noticed the owls until they see us looking at them. How sad to be so unobservant of the world around you!

Just peachy

I never tire of sunsets, of the way the light changes as the sun sinks out of view. I'm sure I could quite happily take a picture a day of the evening play of light on clouds or water or mountains or trees. I'm equally sure the rest of you would quickly grow bored with it. Today, however, you'll have to indulge me!

For Shell

My sister-in-law is a big fan of the color orange. Her house has some fabulous orange accents, and her wardrobe has some stunning pieces in the same color. Somehow, I think she'd approve of the spectacular male Orange-collared Manakin we spotted this morning. He was resting on a vine, waiting for a female to pass by his dance stage. Wow!

Electric blue

There's no denying it: feeder birds in Costa Rica are a lot more gaudy than anything we have in New Jersey. Yes, we have Northern Cardinals and Blue Jays and American Goldfinches, and they can be bright and colorful. But somehow, they don't have the neon intensity of tropical species. And when a feeder is swarming with dozens of species like this Red-legged Honeycreeper (here taking a break from nibbling a nearby banana), well, the eyeballs are very nearly overwhelmed!

A male Red-legged Honeycreeper

A walk in the woods

The oak forest above the Savegre valley in Costa Rica must surely be one of the most beautiful forests in the world. The trees are huge, hung with orchids and vines and bromeliads, and interspersed with the small, densely leaved native bamboos. The air smells clean, fresh, earthy. Soft mounds of green moss carpet the ground, liberally sprinkled with the scattered carcasses of fallen leaves. It's a habitat that's beginning to disappear, given the relentless pressure of development in the area. And for those of us who need the wild places, that loss will be a damned shame.

Red faced

I nearly forgot to take a picture today. As it was, I downloaded photos tonight and found I'd only snapped the shutter four times. Four. That's the second lowest total all year -- not good for someone who's on a self-imposed mission to post a picture a day. Sadly, though I tried four times to get "the" photo of this Red-headed Barbet, none of the four was a particularly good shot. The shadows in the verdant green forest were just a little too deep, the bird just a little too distant, the blue sky in the background just a little too bright. But take my word for it, in real life this wee beastie was spectacular!

Freedom

The skies over Costa Rica are full of raptors these days. In addition to the many locals, there are thousands of migrants headed north. The other day near La Selva, we hit the motherlode as the sun sank lower and the shadows lengthened over the marsh we were visiting. From horizon to horizon, hundreds and hundreds of Turkey Vultures and Swainson's Hawks circled in towering thermals, like bubbles in boiling pots. There were places in the sky where there were quite literally rivers of birds streaming over, so high they were just scraps of darkness against the high cirrus clouds. The sheer number of birds was goose bump inducing.

A hunting Swallow-tailed Kite, newly arrived from South America, surfs the airwaves.

Thief

Initially, I was rather disappointed with this shot. I'd meant to get a good clear photo of this bold thief, a Variegated Squirrel that lives on the grounds of Rancho Naturalista. Unfortunately, it spotted an incoming Montezuma Oropendola and bailed just as I snapped the shutter. Arg! But the longer I looked at the picture, the more I liked the sense of motion and urgency it conveyed -- the blur of the squirrel's quickly moving legs, the spin of its body and the near motionless balance of its tail. Not perfect, but a fun reminder of our stay.

Flutter by

Costa Rica has some 1250 species of butterflies and more than 8000 species of moths -- and we're seeing big numbers of them on our current tour. Perhaps the country's drought has something to do with that (maybe fewer are succumbing to fungal infections), or perhaps the fact that we're having lots of sunny days this year just means they're flying more. Whatever the reason, we're certainly reveling in the  subtle and the splashy, the large and the small, the cooperative (and photographed) and the flighty (and seen only).

Banded Peacock (Anartia fatima)

Bats. In tents.

Most of us have seen a bat or two in our day -- typically winnowing over a field or backyard as summer  days stretch into twilight, maybe dipping low after some insect and then fluttering rapidly away. But finding them resting during the day is less common, and finding them resting in a tent of their own making is rarer still. We found this trio of tent-making bats in La Selva's rainforest today. The bats nibble along both sides of the midrib of a big leaf, which weakens the leaf and causes it to fold. Then they hang themselves up under their leafy green roof, safe from predators and the elements. The only thing they hadn't counted on was inquisitive photographers!

Who, me?

We spent this evening wandering in the rainforest at La Selva Biological Station, looking at owls and frogs and nocturnal mammals and anything else we could find. This little Vermiculated Screech-Owl was one of the highlights. After traipsing along concrete paths through the darkened forest for more than an hour without hearing a peep from any owl, we suddenly heard one call right from a dense tangle just beside us off the path. Putting our flashlights out, we stood in silence with the bright beams of a nearly full moon raining light down between the leaves. Our local guide whistled softly. A hiss of indrawn breath from our driver Lenin, who stood beside me, alerted me he'd seen something go past. I flicked on my light and he guided the beam toward a branch almost within touching distance. Magical! That little owl sat on its branch, head swiveling between us and the surrounding forest for more than 10 minutes. We finally walked away from it, leaving it to its nighttime kingdom.

A wide-eyed Vermiculated Screech-Owl checks out the birders.

Emerald green

When it comes to bird names, ornithologists are a pretty sober lot. Typically, it's just a color, a body part, a location and a general descriptor: Red-tailed Hawk. Eastern Towhee. Blue Jay. Orange-rumped Parakeet. But when it comes to the hummingbirds, those same staid biologists went rather off the deep end. They were bewitched and bedazzled by the tiny birds, and named them accordingly: sunbeams, angels, emeralds, sapphires, sprites, fairies, comets, woodstars and jewelfronts vie with the plain old "hummingbirds" in the indices of Central and South American bird books. And when you see one in person, you understand why.

A tiny Coppery-headed Emerald doesn't even bend the edge of the leaf he's sitting on.

Changing moon

“Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. Then your love would also change.” 
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet