Posts in Category: Honduras
Howler
Howler Monkey, Cuero y Salado NWR, Honduras
It is not all birds on the ZEISS/Eagle Optics VICTORY SF Experience at Pico Bonito Lodge in Honduras. One of the treats on today’s visit to Cuero y Saado Wildlife Refuge was a troop of Howler Monkeys resting in the trees. You may have seen them in zoos, but there is nothing like seeing them in the wild.
Nikon P900 at 500mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 200 @ f5. Processed in Lightroom.
Shinning Honeycreeper
Shinning Honeycreeper, The Lodge at Pico Bonito, Honduras
After ordering breakfast, and before breakfast came, a mixed feeding flock visited the trees right outside the Restaurant at the Lodge at Pico Bonito this morning. Being birders we all grabbed binos and cameras and headed for the deck. We did not see any Honeycreepers at the Lodge last year, but we have already seen 2 different species this year. It does not get any better than this photo.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent. 1/125th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Collared Trogon. Happy Sunday!
Collared Trogon. Panacam Lodge, Honduras
If your eye is generous your whole being is full of light. Jesus
I will admit to liking large, or at least larger, birds with a lot of color. Some of the most interesting birds in any country, including Honduras, are small plain birds that are hard to notice and harder to photograph. I know this, but I still prefer to photograph the showy birds. Call it a character flaw!
This Collard Trogon was right on the grounds, showing early, at the Panacam Lodge in the mountains of Honduras. I was very happy to get it, even if the light was not ideal. That is an aspect of the generous eye…being happy with what is there. It is part of being full of light. The light inside illuminates all you see with a touch of wonder. Now if I could just convince my mind that small, dull birds are just as worthy, and reflect just as much light as bigger showy birds. If only.
Happy Sunday!
Turquoise Browed Motmot
Turquoise-browed Motmot, Lake Yojoa, Honduras
Okay…this is what Honduras is all about. Near Lake Yojoa this afternoon. It tried to elude us, but another photographer and I tracked it down!
Nikon P900 at 1200mm equivalent field of view. 1/200th @ ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped for composition in Lightroom.
Grove-billed Ani, Aguan Valley, Honduras
We birded from the bus (once it was light) all the way from the Lodge at Pico Bonito to the Honduran Emerald Preserve…three hours both ways. Much of the trip was in the interior valley of the Aguan river…beautiful open country with rushing tributaries and a backdrop of mountains on either side. We pulled up beside a large “tank”, a scrape pond made for watering cattle, to look for ducks and waders, and this Grove-billed Ani was sunning itself on a fence post not far from the bus. This shot was taken out the open window of the bus.
Anis are not the most beautiful of birds, but they are interesting. The massive bill and the always somewhat disheveled plumage with its touch of iridescence are pretty unique. This bird is letting the sun into its feathers to kill mites that live there.
Sony HX400V at something over 1200mm equivalent field of view (using Clear Image Digital Zoom). 1/800th @ ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Rio Santiago Lodge, Honduras
In honor of several inches of fresh snow on the ground here in Maine this morning, we will return to hot Honduran hummingbirds. This is the Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, photographed at the Rio Santiago Lodge, high up on the shoulders of Pico Bonito in Honduras. The Lodge is 5 km up a single track road, at the very end. Strangely enough, there are not one, but two churches, just below the lodge. I am not sure what population they serve up there on the mountain, apparently far from any dwellings. The lodge is famous for hummingbirds. They maintain over 50 feeders, hung from the outdoor patios and the trees on the grounds. We saw 12 species while we were there, and there is potential for a half a dozen more.
The colors on a hummingbird, especially the gorget on head and throat, are not pigment…they are the result of light refracted through tiny bubbles in the feathers, so the colors vary greatly depending on the angle of the light and its intensity. I think this is the same bird in each frame. It returned to the same perch but the images were taken over the course of a couple of hours, and the light was changing all the time.
Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. 1/125th second at ISO 1000-1250. Processed and cropped for scale in Lightroom and assembled in Phototastic on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
(Violet) Crowned Woodnymph: Happy Sunday!
Crowned Woodnymph, Lodge at Pico Bonito and Rio Santiago, Honduras
This is my second hummingbird collage in a row. Yesterday I featured the White-necked Jacobin. Today we have four shots of the Crowned Woodnymph, until recently called the Violet Crowned Woodnymph. The White-necked Jocobin and the Crowned Woodnymph were the most numerous hummingbirds at the feeders both at the Lodge at Pico Bonito and the Rio Santiago Lodge in Honduras. The first shot here is from Pico Bonito…the others are from Rio Santiago. And, as I mentioned yesterday, all were taken in the subdued light of a cloudy afternoon. The shots at Rio Santiago were taken the the shadow of impending rain.
The hummingbirds of Central America are enough to make we want to visit again and again. Sony HX400V. The light levels were low, but there was enough light for ISO 320-1250, with shutter speed pegged at 1/125…which is about as slow as I would dare to go with a hummingbird, especially hand held at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Phototastic on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
It is interesting that the White-necked Jacobin collage from yesterday went somewhat viral on Google+…and, in fact, it is still getting 10 new +s an hour, and garnering views 24 hours after posting. As of a moment ago it was at 1734 +s, 301 comments (plus about 30 removed as spam), 132 shares, and 802,000 views. I was totally amazed when it went over 500,000 views, half a million, but now a million views is in sight. It is slowing, and probably will not make 1 million, but still…that is a awesome number of views for me. Humbling, and, honestly, a little scary. What kind of world do we live in when I…in all honesty, just a guy from Kennebunk Maine…can post a picture which is seen by 800,000 people in a single day, when over 1700 of them take the time to hit the + button, and over 300 are moved to comment? To keep things in perspective I have to remember that cute kittens get a million or more views on a regular basis…but still…if someone had told me, even last year, that a photo of mine would have that kind of audience I would have laughed right out loud. I mean, really?
Still, I value every view…every + and every comment. I am humbly thankful. And I have to believe that may of those who viewed the collage saw what I saw in it…the simply fantastic beauty of our natural world…and that a good percentage of them saw behind the beauty to the source…to the artist…to the creator of all beauty…who beyond creation gave us the gift of appreciation…the eye to see the beauty, and the heart to feel the wonder…the spirit to enjoy. Thank you God. Happy Sunday!
White-necked Jacobin
White-necked Jacobin at the feeders at the Lodge at Pico Bonito
I was really hoping for a sunny afternoon at the Lodge at Pico Bonito in Honduras when, during our siesta time, I could just sit on the porch at the Lodge at Pico Bonito and photograph the hummingbirds coming to the feeders. There were at least a half dozen species. As it was, we only had one afternoon like that…our first…the rest of the days the rain-forest cloud cover had moved in by noon. Just the way it happened on our week there.
This is a White-necked Jacobin, one of the more common hummers at the Lodge feeders. A medium sized hummingbird, it is certainly an eye-full.
Except for the perched shot, these are all Sports Mode on the Sony HX400V at about 470mm equivalent field of view and 1/400th. I was fairly close to the action. The perched bird was further away. Shot at 1200mm equivalent @ 1/250th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Phototastic on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Next trip maybe I will get more sunny afternoons!
Mangrove Common Black-Hawk
Mangrove Common Black-Hawk, Cuero y Salado Wildlife Refuge, Honduras
The bird checklist for the Lodge at Pico Bonito lists two Common Black-Hawks: Common and Mangrove Common. They are both the same species, so far, but the feeling in Honduras is that they are distinct populations, and perhaps different birds. This is the Mangrove variety, found in the mangroves along the Cuero y Salado rivers near the Caribbean coast. It is a juvenile bird. We were birding from boats, and I had the distinction of spotting this young bird from across the broad river as we motored back to the docks. At first, due to the proximity to water, and the distance, I thought it was an Osprey. A closer look convinced me otherwise. Our second boat (the one with the guide in it) saw us suddenly turn and head for shore and looped back, so everyone had great looks as the bird perched on a snag and hopped along the shore.
Sony HX400V. 655mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 400 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Rainforest Waterfall
Above Rio Santiago, Honduras
There is more to Honduras than birds and bugs, of course. While hard to capture, the rainforest is full of lush growth, rushing water, and occasional vistas from a ridge where the trees thin. This is a waterfall on a feeder stream to the Rio Santiago, 6 km up the side of the mountains from the main route, which is already up on the shoulders of the mountains surrounding Pico Bonito. Our birding group paused here for photos and to enjoy the scene.
Sony HX400V. About 50mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure: ISO 200 @ 1/50th @ f3.5. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.