Costa Rica - Tortuguero National Park

Depart Tilajari for the Tortuguero National Park. En route, we stop to visit the EARTH Institute, a college where stuudents from throughout Central and South America learn husbandry, agriculture, and environmental sciences.The university is dedicated to developing sustainable development in the humid tropics. We pass through some of the more isolated communities of Costa Rica before boarding our launch for the 45 minutre ride up the Rio Tortuguero to the National Park. Our bus ride begins to reveal some of the new avifauna we will encounter during this leg of the trip, namely the Crested Caracara, the Tiger Heron and more and more monkeys and slothes.
Tortuguero National Park - We spend most of the day on the waters of Tortuguero National Park. The early morning is spent exploring the canals of Tortuguero and its wonderful wildlife. Although technically not a birding trip, the guides here are all very knowledgable and when they find that several of us including Sharon and myself are avid birders, they are more than willing and excited to share their obvious extensive familiarity with the birds of the Park. Even the water-taxi driver displays a depth of identification skills we are indeed impressed with. He explains through our guide Stuart that most Costa Ricans grow up with the birds and therefore have a natural afinity and understanding the avifauna of the land. We add a number of lifers on the trip today and it is by far the best day of the already wonderful trip.

Costa Rica - Tilajari

We travelled to the Arenal volcano/hotsprings area and on to the Tilajari Resort. We enjoyed the hot springs of the Ecotermales Fortuna Hidalgo and birded along the San Carlos River where the resort is located. The dining area turned out to be a real hot spot for birds visiting the feeders and consumed a fair amount of our time as we photographed and tried to id the many species which appeared. Also had some great views of the howler monkeys in route to the resort. We raft our way down the enas Blancas River in search of iguanas, monkeys, birds and whatever other wildlife comes our way. Between the sightings along the river and the sightings at the Tilajari Resort, we amass a nice day list of about 25 species many of which are new life birds.

Costa Rica - Monteverde

Day 3 - A long drive along rutted dirt roads brings us up to Monteverde Lodge in the Cloud forest. After a homestyle lunch, we drive over to the Selvatura suspended bridges for a hike through the canopy. Our guides are Carlos and Andreas and although the birds are hard to find in the thick foliage, they make their presence known through their calls and songs.
Day 4-Our second day at the Monteverde Resort gives us great sightings of the Emerald toucanet, the Yellow-throated euphonia, and the mammal of the day, a white-nosed-coati all on the grounds of the hotel. We travel to the butterfly garden and meet Zack, an American who is pursuing his doctorate in entomology. After lunch at Sofia Nuevo Latino restaurant, we move onto the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve and visit a hummingbird site for some great photo ops of specialities like the Violet sabrewing. Tomorrw morning, its off to Lake Arenal.

Costa Rica - Part I

We had the good fortune to be able to spend a week in Costa Rica with good friends from CT. Our tour included travelling the rough dirt roads through the Cloud Forest of Monteverde and finally down into the jungles of Tortuguero National Park.
Day 1 Arrive at San Jose and get used to our new surroundings at Hotel Real-Intercontinental. Nice to see our new avian friends including Inca dove, Rufous-collared sparrow, and Great kiskadee. The rest of the tour group will arrive tomorrow, but in the meantime, we will take advantage of our extra day to get accustomed to our new surroundings. Day 2 - Continues at San Jose as we await the arrival of our fellow travellers. Take a stroll through part of San Jose and visit the local Supermarket for supplies before we head out for the Cloud forest. New birds include the Melodious blackbird.

Having read Scott's report on birding the Sunshine State, we figured we'd add our account of yesterday's birding adventure down here. Friends from upstate New York joined us for a tour of the Viera Wetlands south of Titusville. In spite of a late arrival at the site due to construction on I-95, we managed to record 57 species. We had set our goat at a modest 45 which we easily surpassed and had aimed at two specific target species. The first was the Crested Caracara and the second the secretive Least bittern. The first was a piece of cake as the bird flew right into the drainage ditch adjacent to our parked car for a meal of mudpuppy. A most cooperative bird, the usually elusive caracara paid us little heed and went about his dining while we were afforded a number of quite nice shooting opportunities. The bittern was not quite so cooperative. After almost 4 hours on the reserve, we finally got a quick glimpse of the Least and finally patience paid off. Sitting quietly in wait, we were rewarded for our efforts by several brief but clear views of this fine specimen. As we watched and photographed the bittern, an unexpected gem, a Marsh wren, flew right into view for us to study at close range. Just another day in paradise.

Owlets

This has been a great year for owling here in Florida and we decided to simply post a couple of shots of the newest arrivals. In the past week, we had the opportunity to check out a couple of nests with chicks on board...on the left is a barred owl chick awaiting its mother for its next meal and on the right a nest found at Sylvan Lake Park which was home to this pair of Great horned owl chicks. Check out the images and enjoy these little bundles of joy.

Chilly Days in Florida

Well, the sunshine state may be sunny, but it feels more like a northeast winter lately. By March, Central Florida is usually coming out of the relatively cool winter months and is on a warming trend. Our morning temperatures have been in the 40s and barely reach the high 50s for our daytime high. Hopefully that will change in the immediate future and we'll be back to what we consider is "typical" Florida weather. In the meantime, Sharon and I have been scouting out some of the refuges in seach of birds trying to stay out of the heavy winds. Cold temps don't generally bother them as long as food is still abundant, but the winds really tend to knock them down. And so, our birding has been mostly in the wetlands and more sheltered parks of late. In the past three days, we visited several local parks including Buschmann Park in Port Orange, Riverbreeze in Oak Hill, and Spruce Creek just north of New Smyrna Beach. We were pleased to find some new warblers moving into the area including Common yellowthroats, Black and Whites, and Northern parulas. These are early spring birds for us and their showing up must mean spring is just around the corner. We'll be sending them up to our summer haunts in the near future, but for now, we'll delight in watching and photographing them here at our winter quarters. We also picked up a new "year bird", the Spotted sandpiper, in exactly the same location where we had him last year. No mating plumage yet, but attractive all the same. As I write this, I'm looking out the window of our condo and watching the waves which had been coming out of the north for the past several days, now approaching from the southeast.....signs of warmer weather finally arriving!

Emeralda Marsh

We travelled out to Emeralda Marsh in Lisbon, Florida with the Halifax River Audubon Club. After yesterday's chilly and blustery conditions, today seems like mid-summer with temps near 70 and bright sunny skies.....a perfect day for shooting. We begin in the parking lot with the usual fare.....cardinal, blue jay, red-bellied woodpecker, etc. As we head into the reserve, however, we begin to pick up some new birds for the year. Our first Northern parula makes an appearance. While I don't have my camera in hand, it does give me a great look through the bins. I'll get the photo later. Walking the trail inside the marsh, we get nice looks at a Blue-gray gnatcatcher, several more singing parulas, Pine warbler, and Hermit thrush among others. At the impoundments, I get to capture an event I had never seen before. Two moorhens are squaring off apparently trying to win over the heart of a female who idly sits by and watches the entire affair. It's that time of year here in Florida and a young man's (bird's) fancy turns to love. After the official trip ends, Sharon and I can't pass up the opportunity to stop on the way home at two known haunts of the burrowing owl. These guys are the most reliable subjects we have and have never let us down. Both spots produce with nice looks giving us the perfect conclusion to a pretty perfect day of birding.

Blue Spring State Park

Here in Florida, one of the most beloved creatures we come across is the Manatee. These are truly gentle giants growing to weigh over a ton and eating several hundred pounds of vegetation each day. During the colder months and during cold stretches in Spring, the manatee will congregate in warm bodies of water, mainly springs. They require warmth to survive and thus large numbers show up in places like Blue Spring State Park in Orange City, FL. Over two hundred may show up on any given day and the number of people who come to the spring to see these magnificient beasts is much much higher than that! In addition to the manatee, the spring and its environs play host to many of Florida's most spectacular birds. While on an eco-tour boat today, Sharon and I spotted and photographed such beautiful species as the limpkin, the American bittern, the Purple gallinule, and the Bald eagle. If you plan to visit the spring, don't miss the boat trip after checking out the manatees.....it's a great place to spend the day!

Viera Wetlands

One of the premier spots in East Central Florida for birding is the site of the Viera waste treatment facility, AKA Viera Wetlands. The impoundments of the plant serve as a feeding ground and "home" for both migrants and resident birds. Adjacent to the impoundments, one finds extensive fields where Sandhill cranes forage and Northern harriers skim across the tops of the grasses in search of their next meal. Today's trip yielded 40 species, mostly waterfowl, waders, and "skulkers". As you approach the preserve, there is a large pond on the right which is always promising, and today we got great views of Ring-necked ducks, Blue-winged teal, and a kestril on the wires behind us. The best views of the day included a harrier which worked the field right in front of us as we sat on one of the benches inside the reserve and had our lunch. The harrier spooked a Common snipe which flew up in a panic. We also had a great time watching three Snowy egrets which were feeding by hitting the water with their long bills as they flew over shallow impoundments. I'd never seen that feeding behavior from Snowies before. What can I say.....just another day in paradise.

Back to Florida

We've returned to our second home in Florida for the winter and are excited about revisiting our favorite southern birding spots. Our first trip to Merritt Island NWR of the 2009 season proves to be more than we hoped for. In spite of temperatures that never reached 50 and strong north winds, we still managed to record 47 species. Among the "specialties" were Loggerhead shrike, Roseatte spoonbill, American bittern (that makes two in two days!), Florida scrub jay and Savannah sparrow. All that and we only covered Biolab Road....less than a third of the drivcs and trails afforded birders in this beautiful park. Any birder or anyone interested in nature for that matter simply must have Merritt on their todo list when visiting the "space coast". It is truly one of the birding gems of the US. We'll return next week to another section of the reserve, Black Point Drive, to continue adding to our "year list".

North Carolina 2009

As we head south for the winter like so many of our avian friends, we always make a layover in North Carolina to visit friends and search for new parks to bird. We spent a wonderful week adding to our "yearlist" with species like the Horned grebe, Barred owl, Yellow-rump and Palm warblers and plenty of Ospreys and Red-shouldered hawks. One of the more spectacular sights, however, was a field in Columbia, NC which was hosting not fewer than 1000 snow geese (conservative estimate!). We searched for Ross's amongst them, but since we were parked in the middle of the highway with no shoulder to pull off onto, we were a bit pre-occupied. Nonetheless, the sight was certainly something to behold. The other target bird we nailed down for the year on this trip was the Tundra swan. Last year we had founds hundreds of these magnificient birds in the watery fields of Alligator River NWR, but this year the refuge only yielded one specimen! Where did they go this year? Well, we finally found some, although fewer than previous sightings, at Mattamuskeet NWR. All in all, it was a great way to begin our three months in the south with many more great adventures ahead of us.

VISION Eagle Watch

One beautiful thing about doing Eagle trips is that you always come away with more than you bargained for. Sharon and I led a trip from Bear Mountain Bridge south to Croton Station for our local community group, "VISION". While the temps hovered in the teens and was actually 8 degrees at the time of departure, we still had 19 hearty souls join us and enjoy watching no fewer than 26 Bald eagles in flight, roosting, riding the ice flows on the Hudson, and perched in a couple of nests we pointed out. Along with these sightings, we had a close-up view of a fine Cooper's hawk and sightings of a number of different kinds of ducks including Redheads, Canvasbacks, Greater scaup, Common mergansers, Ruddy ducks, and more. We finished the day of with an inspiring flight of a Northern harrier over the grasslands at Croton Park. All-in-all, one fine day of birding with many fine folks!!!