Lights of home

There's nothing as homey as the lights of your own house beckoning to you when you've been away for a while.  I'm looking forward to being home for a bit!

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