Costa Rica Birds - Post 1

From the 14th through the 19th of November 2023, I visited Costa Rica on a bird photography trip. Above is a Keel-Billed Toucan, one of more than 900 species of birds that can be found in Costa Rica. Obviously, the dominant feature of the Keel-Billed Toucan is its amazingly colorful beak. However, the toucan’s large beak is for more than just eating. It is covered in blood vessels and is used for thermal regulation. When the bird is hot, blood flows farther out into the beak, and the heat escapes through the thin outer layer.

Starting my narration at the beginning of my trip, I spent a day traveling to get to San Jose Costa Rica from Boston. The next morning, I met the group, we piled into a van, then drove north for several hours. In the afternoon, we visited Frog’s Heaven as I discussed in my last post. We ended the day by driving to Selva Verde Lodge where we would spend the next three nights. We arrived at the lodge with enough time to walk around the property before dinner. This image of five Great Egrets was taken from a suspension bridge looking down at the Sarapiqui river which functions as the southern boarder of the lodge. One aspect I like about this photograph is its unusual perspective. It is generally rare to be able to photograph a bird in flight from above.

Later, as I walked along the bank of the river, I photographed this Bare-Throated Tiger Heron as it took off. In this image, I like how the color palate of the river and especially the stone match or complement the colors in the bird. As with the vast majority of birds I saw on my trip, this was a new species for me.

Following a good night’s sleep, we arose before 6 AM for a half hour drive to Trogon’s Briding Lodge. The Keel-Billed Toucan image that started this post was one of the very first birds we happened to see there. This Collared Aracari, another species of toucan, arrived about 20 minutes later. Costa Rica has an extremely strong ecotourism industry including many locations specifically catering to bird watchers and photographers. In these locations, bird feeding stations are generally set up using appropriate native foods with nearby perches for the birds to land on. Generally, there is a blind where we can sit or stand to get nice views of the birds.

Above is a Great Kiskadee, a member of the flycatcher family.

This is a Buff-Throated Saltador. Personally, I would have had no idea of the different bird’s identities without the Merlin app on my phone. Merlin was created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology which is an amazing resource for birding. I can give Merlin a photo along with information such as location and date, and it will usually make excellent suggestions about the bird’s identity. When it has a clean photograph such as this one, it is extremely accurate. It provides information about the bird along with photographs and songs which can help with verifying identifications. Also, it can attempt to identify birds from their songs. This is less accurate than photo identification, but can still be invaluable in the field.

This is a female Green Honeycreeper. Honeycreepers eat nectar, fruit, seeds and small insects.

Here is a male Red-Legged Honeycreeper. Interestingly, the female of this species is green although slightly more muted than the female Green Honeycreeper in the previous photo.

This Squirrel Cuckoo was up in the nearby trees, not near the feeders. It took several minutes of tracking it before it finally landed in a spot where I could get a clean photo.

This is a male Scarlet-Rumped Tanager. As you will see in the next photo, the female looks quite different. Looking at both photos, it is clear that the name is derived from the male coloring.

For contrast, here is a photo of the female Scarlet-Rumped Tanager. I happen to find the female of this species to be more visually interesting even though I find the scarlet patch on the male more dramatic.

This is a Dusky-Faced Tanager. Its color palate is remarkably similar to the female Scarlet-Rumped Tanager of the previous image.

Although there were no hummingbird feeders at this location, I nonetheless photographed this Rufous-Tailed Hummingbird. From this angle, the rufous coloring on the tail is not visible as it would be if seen from the back. Costa Rica has many different species of hummingbirds as I will show in future posts.

After about 4 hours at Trogon’s Birding Lodge, we piled into the van and headed to Pierella Ecological Garden. I will share photos from there in my next blog post.