Posts in Category: Pico Bonito

Faceoff: Brown Violet-ear Hummingbirds

Brown Violet-ear Hummingbirds, Rio Santiago Resort, Hondruas

I have mentioned before that the Brown Violet-ear Hummingbirds were so dominent on this trip to Honduras (the Point and Shoot Nature Photographer adventure at the Lodge at Pico Bonito) that they suppressed the numbers of other species that we saw. They also got in each others’ way a lot 🙂 We saw a lot of confrontations between hummers competing for the same feeders and the same space. The Brown Violet-ear is not a flashy bird by hummingbird standards, but it makes up for it in attitude!

Sony RX10iii at 530mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 640 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.

Brown Violet Ear Hummingbird

Brown Violet-ear Hummingbird, Rio Santiago Resort, Honduras

The dominant Hummingbird species on our visit to Rio Santiago Resort in the North Coastal mountains of Honduras, by a ratio of 25 to 1, was the Brown Violet-ear. Rio Santiago Resort is actually a small lodge with a few cabins that is justly renowned for the numbers of hummingbirds and the numbers of hummingbird species that work feeders, too many to count, that they maintain. There were certainly hundreds, maybe thousands, of BVEs working the feeders at the lodge. For that reason, we saw far fewer species at the feeders than we expected. Even the most aggressive species, like the Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds, were kept at bay by the sheer numbers of BVEs. This shot, which actually shows the “violet ears”, was taken in the deep shade of the thatched roof over the open air restaurant/bar at the lodge. The roof is lined with maybe 50 feeders, and there are always a hundred or more hummers buzzing overhead while you eat. It is hard to imagine the density of hummers. I was able to stand at at less than 3 feet from the wire supporting the feeders and frame as many BVEs as I wanted. It was dark under there, and this shot was taken at a very high ISO…but it is exactly the kind of shot the Sony JPEG engine does best with, even at such an elivated ISO. Lots of fine detail and a blank background. Sony’s noise reduction routines work very well here.

Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 6400 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.

Kinkajou!

Kinkajou. The Lodge at Pico Bonito, Honduras

Kinkajou. The Lodge at Pico Bonito, Honduras

We took a night hike at the Lodge at Pico Bonito, looking for Owls, reptiles, Red-eyed Tree Frogs, and whatever we might find. We heard the Vermiculated Screech Owl, and Mottled Owl, but could not see either of them. The Red-eyed Tree Frogs were great, and we found no snakes 🙂 What we did find was a Kinkajou, high in the canopy, taking as much interest in us as we were in him. Our guide, Elemer, first heard something moving high in the trees while we were looking at moths on the moth sheet near the edge of the forest on our way to the Tower and frog pond but could not see it. Then as we walked through the rainforest up to the tower in the dark, he must have heard it overhead (Elmer hears everything), and we got our lights on it. It had apparently heard us and come over to check us out. With the lights on it for focus, I popped up my flash and tried a few shots, which came out surprisingly well considering it was totally dark under the canopy. The eyes, of course, reflected back the flash. This is a collage of two shots…not two Kinkajous 🙂

The Kinkajou is a member of the same family as Raccoons and Cotis. It is not scarce within Central and South America, but is rarely seen as it is strictly nocturnal. There is evidently a trade in Kinkajous as pets (though why anyone would want a nocturnal animal as a pet is question I can’t answer) and for meat and leather (they evidently make wallets and saddles out of it). Honduras, in particular, strictly regulates any trade in Kinkajous.

Sony RX10iii at about 330mm equivalent field of view. Flash at ISO 3200. Processed in Lightroom (including red-eye removal).

Violet Saberwing

Violet Saberwing. Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, Honduras

Violet Saberwing. Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, Honduras

This is another set from Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, high on the shoulder of the mountain near Pico Bonito National Park. Their many feeders attract a wide variety of hummingbirds year-round. This is the Violet Saberwing, one of the larger tropical rain forest hummingbirds, and certainly one of the more spectacular. It is also one of the most common.

Nikon P610 and P900 at various focal lengths and exposures. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.

Toucan in the rain…

Keel-billed Toucan, the Lodge at Pico Bonito, Honduras

The avocados were ripening in the trees on the grounds of the Lodge at Pico Bonito in Honduras when I was there, and avocados attract birds…Lovely Contingas in the high canopy, and Collard Aricaris and Keel-billed Toucans lower down. This year Emerald and Yellow-eared Toucanetts joined them from higher up in the mountains. On my last morning there, waiting for my bus to the airport, shooting hummingbirds from the cover of the porches and decks at the Lodge while it rained, a group of Aricaris and Toucans came through the grounds. I love Toucans, so I put up my umbrella and chased them around the corner and out to the big trees around two of the cabins where I knew they might stop to feed on the avocados. And they were there, feeding in the rain. Shooting from under an umbrella is not easy. You have to balance the umbrella somehow while holding the camera, and you have to pay close attention to the angle of your cover while you attempt to track and frame moving birds above you. As this shot attests, however, it is possible. The rain streaks add to the portrait and the colors of the wet bird are as rich as they get.

Nikon P610 at 1330mm equivalent. 1/100th @ ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.

Specticaled Owl

Specticaled Owl, Rio Santiago Lodge, Honduras

Rio Santiago Lodge in Honduras is where you go to photograph hummingbirds, but over the past year the Lodge has had several attractions besides the hummers. Just after I was there in February 2015, a newly fledged Specticaled Owl moved into the area behind the lodge, and beginning last fall was seen regularly within a short hike of the Lodge. The bird is now just about a year old, and can still be found, most days. The guides at the lodge keep track of its comings and goings and generally know about where to look…consequently it is now perhaps the most photographed Specticaled Owl in the world :).

And what an amazing bird it is. Beautiful in all the ways any owl is…but spectacular in its facial pattern. On the day I was there, it was somewhat obscured by branches…but still an amazing sight.

Nikon P900 at 1800mm equivalent field of view. 1/30th @ ISO 800 @ f6.3. (Pretty good for hand-held at 1/30th second.) Processed in Lightroom.

Woodnympth at the feeder

Crowned Woodnmypth, Rio Santiago Lodge, Honduras

Part of what makes Rio Santiago Lodge a great place for Hummingbird photography is how close you can get to the feeders. If you sit on the terrace under the thatched roof of the open-air restaurant, there are feeders hanging just above your head. Moving around in the restaurant is a challenge because if you are not careful you will bump your head on a feeder and get showered in sugar water (or get skewered by a Long-billed Hermit or Saberwing :). Even on the open slope above the lodge where most of the feeders are, you can sit within 8 feet of an active feeder. That makes shots like this possible. This is another Crowned Woodnmpth using one of the home-made feeders off the deck above the lodge.

Nikon P610 at 1440mm equivalent. Shutter preferred. 1/320th @ ISO 1000 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.

Just a Blue-crowned Motmot

Blue-crowned Motmot, the Lodge at Pico Bonito, Honduras

Blue-crowned Motmot, the Lodge at Pico Bonito, Honduras

Just another Blue-crowned Motmot. Okay, just because the Blue-crowned Motmot is the most common of the Motmots at the elevations around the Lodge at Pico Bonito (and even up at Panacam Lodge at the edge of the cloud forest), does not mean that it is not a spectacular bird. It was, indeed, almost the very first bird I saw at Panacam, and among the first I saw at Pico Bonito. Still. Under any other circumstances, it would be a knock-out bird. It has the long weird tail, the bright blues and greens, the deep rust of the breast, the red eye, and a sexy name: Motmot! This bird was along the entry road at Pico Bonito, in the trees overhanging, and we walked under it on our way to try to photograph Lovely Cotingas. I found myself at the back of the group by the time I finished photographing it. No one else took a second look. Birders!

Nikon P900 at various exposures as the light changed between shots, and at various focal lengths from 1000mm to 2000mm. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.

Crowned Woodnymth

Crowned Wood-nymth, Rio Santiago Lodge, Honduras

Crowned Woodnymth, Rio Santiago Lodge, Honduras

This is a collage of two shots of the Crowned-Woodnymth Hummingbird taken at Rio Santiago Lodge, in the high rainforest of Honduras. Rio Santiago maintains nearly a hundred feeders on the slope above the lodge, and on the terrace by the outdoor restaurant, and attracts too many hummingbirds to count, During the height of the season, June and July, they go through 435 pounds of sugar a week. I have only visited in February, but I will be back in late June this year. The best part of Rio Santiago, however, is not the feeders, but the abundance of natural perches and blooming flowers, which makes hummingbird photography there, as far as I am concerned, a unique experience.

The Crowned Woodnymth, which was, until recently, called the Violet-crowned Woodnymth, is one of the most colorful of Central American hummingbirds. Blue, green, violet, and black shimmer in almost any light…each so intense that it just about overloads the digital sensor in your camera. I am not sure why they took the violet from its crown. I suspect it is a relumping of some of the closely related crowned woodnympths, which were once considered a single species, then split, and now lumped back together again. This collage shows a bit of the attitude of the bird too. It is a feisty little thing, well capable of seizing its share of the sugar water. It is also one of the more common of Honduran Hummers, so you see a lot of them, both at the Lodge at Pico Bonito, and at the Rio Santiago Lodge.

Two frames from the Nikon P610 at 1100mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/320th @ ISO 1400 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage. If you are interested in joining me in June at the Lodge at Pico Bonito and Rio Santiago Lodge, check out the information on the trip at Point and Shoot Nature Photographer. 

Humming in the rain. Happy Sunday!

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird. The Lodge at Pico Bonito, Honduras

“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus

On my last morning at the Lodge at Pico Bonito in Honduras, while I waited for the bus to the airport, I spent 3 hours around the Lodge in the rain…mostly shooting from the covered decks and walkways. I made the occasional foray out into the grounds with my umbrella when something worthy presented itself and tempted me to chase it (the Toucans for instance). This Rufous-tailed Hummingbird was using one of the flowers right off the deck at the restaurant for a perch. It was a favorite perch…I saw Rufous-tailed, Crowned Wood-nymth, Jocobin, and Saberwing use it over the course of the three hours. Despite the subdued light, there is a lot to see in this image. You get a bird-in-the-hand view of the feather texture. You can see where the angle of the light catches color from the feathers under the neck, and what they look like when the light is not refracting through them. I love the little drops of water on the head, and the rain streaks caught in the back and foreground. I love the clarity and the liquid perfection of the eye.

The shot has an intimate feeling to it…I think because it captures something shared: a shared attitude. Both the the hummer and I were enduring the rain…making the most of a “bad” situation…or rather transforming a potentially bad situation into a good one by the persistence of a positive attitude. A little rain is not going to stop either of us from doing what needs to be done…and, in my case at least, from doing what I enjoy doing. It would be ungenerous of me to think less of the bird. I suspect, from the look of him, that he was enjoying the morning too. It is a shared moment of enjoyment…in the rain. Intimate.

I would like to think that God looks into my rainy days in the same way…enjoying my enjoyment…sharing an intimate moment. It would be ungenerous of me tho think otherwise of God, don’t you think? And when your eye is generous, God is always the third in any intimate encounter between two creatures. Enjoying the enjoyment! Or that is what I think.

Happy Sunday!