Posts in Category: birds
Resplendent Quetzel!
The Point and Shoot Nature Adventure in Costa Rica is at the Savegre Mountain Hotel and Resort for our annual search for the Resplendent Quetzel. For the past 5 trips we have found it in the same tree on the mountainside above the road, but this year the wild avocado fruit is already gone from that tree. We had to find another tree. We were blessed to find the birds right along road, in the next tree up the mountain. Such a spectacular bird! The long streamers are actually the tail coverts…not the tail itself, and you can clearly see that in this photo. Sony Rx10iv at around 800mm equivalent (using a little Clear Image Zoom to fill the frame. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications plus Multi-frame Noise Reduction since we were out before the sun worked its way this deep into the valley (taken at the equivalent of ISO 6400 but using 3 stacked exposures for better image quality.) Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Slaty Flowerpiercer
It was a travel day today, from Selva Verde Lodge in the lowland rain-forest to Savegre Lodge in the Talamanca Mountains. Still we arrived in the highlands in time to make a stop at Miriam’s Quetzels…a small coffee shop on the mountainside with a Quetzel tree out back…and feeders for when the Quetzels are elseware…as in today. We did have a number of great birds around the feeders, including this Slaty Flowerpiercer. You can see in this shot were the bird gets its name. They feed from the bottom of blossoms by poking a hole in the base and extracting nectar and insects. This bird was busy only about 4 feet from the deck. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Yellow-throated Toucan
The largest toucan in Costa Rica is the Yellow-throated Toucan, and it is common at the feeders here at Selva Verde Lodge in the Sarapique River valley (and everywhere else we have been in the the valley rain forest). It used to be the Chestnut-mandibled Toucan, and, before that, the Black-mandibled Toucan. It is big and noisy and hard to miss! Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications, plus auto ISO with multi-frame-noise reduction. Processed in Polarr.
Hummingbirds in the rain. Costa Rica
We spent the morning at Dave & Dave’s Costa Rican Nature Pavilion photographing a wide range of birds in the rain…including hummingbirds. This is a Bronze-tailed Plumeleteer, the only red-footed hummingbird in Costa Rica. Dave & Dave (father and son) no longer use artificial hummingbird feeders. They put out fresh flowers each day which attract the hummers without distracting them from natural food sources. Challenging photography. Natural light. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent (full frame). Program mode with my custom birds in flight and action modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Spectacled Owl, Costa Rica
The bird of the day for our second full day on the Point and Shoot Nature Photography Adventure in Costa Rica was probably this immature Spectacled Owl, which Cope found for us a few miles from his home in La Union de Gaupiles in Limon, Costa Rica. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Anti-motion blur mode, with supplemental light from a light cube attached to the flash shoe. Processed in Polarr.
Emerald Toucanet/Blue-throated Emerald Toucanet
One of the problems with my yearly Point and Shoot Nature Photography Adventures in Costa Rica is that the first day is always so spectacular that it sets a high bar for the remainder of the trip. We start in the morning birding around the hotel grounds above San Jose, and then move on to the hummingbirds and barbets and and warblers and butterflies of La Paz Waterfall Gardens…then stop at at the little back deck at Soda Y Mirador Cinchona for toucanets and more barbets and tanagers and guans and more hummingbirds and arrive at Selva Verde in time for the 5 o’clock Howler Monkey serenade. Most people see more birds in that single day than they see in several months in North America. If Costa Rica was not so rich in birds and wildlife and scenery, and it each day did not top the last, the trip might be all downhill after the first day.
I am writing and posting this tonight, for tomorrow morning, since we will meet at 5am to bird the entrance road…the world famous entrance road…to the La Silva Biological Station. La Silva is often sited as having one of the highest biodiversities of anywhere in the world. And then in the afternoon, we will go hunting owls and bats and wood rails, iguanas and glass frogs, with Cope, around his little half acre paradise and the further neighborhood. Better and better.
What we have here is an Emerald, or Blue-throated Emerald Toucanet at Soda Y Mirador Cinchona. There were three, at eye-level and at about 12 feet. Then one came into the fruit feeder at the corner of the porch and sat less than 4 feet from our fascinated and happy faces. I could literally have petted its head as it feed on the fruit. Happy faces indeed.
Posting may be erratic and in the evening instead of the morning as I have a few more minutes after supper than before breakfast. There is no place in the world for bird photography that is better than Costa Rica 🙂
Hoffmann’s Woodpecker: Costa Rica
Here we are just outside San Jose in Costa Rica, at the Bueno Vista Hotel, and soon after arrival we were graced by not one, but three Hoffmann’s Woodpeckers. You can see the marked resemblance to several North American woodpeckers. Note the erected crown. Evidently at least two the birds were male and displaying some signs of dominance behavior. Sony Rx10iv at 1200mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Cranes and sun dog…
On my one fly-in at the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge (Socorro, New Mexico, USA) this year, we were graced by a sun dog in the sunset. It was subtle, but there. I waited patiently for at least a few Sandhill Cranes to fly by it on their way into the shallow pond for the night. It was low on the horizon and most of the cranes came in too high or too low. Patience was eventually rewarded. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 475mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds in flight and action modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Snow Geese flying
I realized this morning that I have not yet posted a close up photo of the other stars of the Bosque del Apache Festival of the Cranes from this year. As well as 14,000 Sandhill Cranes, between 30,000 and 40,000 Snow Geese winter at the Bosque. This is the first year I have visited Bosque without seeing a Snow Goose panic…when several thousand geese take to the air, calling and circling for between 5 and 15 minutes before settling. The geese were dispersed this year…feeding in several newly flooded fields, and not congregating in very large numbers in any single place. Perhaps that is why I saw no panics. I saw the geese rise in potential panics…but never enough at a time to pull the whole flock into the air. They always settled within seconds. ??? There were still lots of geese in the air as they moved in small flocks from field to field, so there were still opportunities to practice my birds in flight skills on Snow Geese, and I got some decent shots. You will want to view this one at as large as your screen allows…or maybe I should say, “I would like you to.” 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds in flight and action modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Lesser Goldfinch
It is not all birds in flight…not all Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese…at the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge (Socorro, New Mexico, USA). This shot of a Lessor Goldfinch was taken right behind the Expo Tent in the Cactus Garden at the Visitor Center. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds in flight and action modifications (just testing how it worked for stationary birds). Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.