Onward To Melty Face/South to San Vito

Behold; one of my most wanted needed birds of all time.  

In the spirit of finishing what I start, I think it's time, once again, to revisit the Costa Rica trip that part of me seems to refuse to finish wrapping up.  The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive thinks you readers out east could especially use some tropical facemelt about now...so here we go.

After our second round of birding the Talamancas, Dipper Dan and I headed south for unbirded territory.  Once we passed the turnoff to Talari Mountain Lodge in San Isidro, everything was new. We made good time heading south, and didn't stop to bird much except for a Bat Falcon here and a Smooth-billed Ani there...the Southern Pacific Slope of Costa Rica has been heavily deforested for agriculture, at least along the road between San Isidro and San Vito.  There just wasn't much to see. There was one positive aspect to driving through miles of pastureland though...I knew we would have a chance of running into a certain flycatcher that I was hellbent on seeing.

When a Fork-tailed Flycatcher swooped by our car it was all I could do to keep from diving through the window to get a better look at it; a vein in my forehead exploded, sending geysers of blood all over the front of the car and temporarily blinding Dipper Dan.  I wailed and moaned.  My entire life, up to this moment, had been spent waiting for this brilliant bird. There turned out to be a roadside pair that were extremely obliging; I actually got these photos by walking up to the birds instead of gawking at them from the car (which is how I get most of my kingbird and Scissor-tailed Flycatcher pictures).

Much like the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, this is a bird you have to see to believe.  I had one shot at seeing these birds before coming to Costa Rica; I was assured that we would find one in the lowlands east of Veracruz, Mexico, but the day we were to look I was bedridden with intestinal agony. Redemption is mine!  This was one of my top target birds for the trip; we only saw one other during the trip, out near the Esquinas Rainforest Lodge.

That night we met up with Leslie Tucci and Dave Spangenburg, both friends of friends who happened to be living in San Vito at the time.  The next morning it was off to San Vito OTS and the Wilson Botanical Garden for another dose of lifers.  Before we started birding the grounds we got stuck at the fruit feeder, where a suite of sweet tropical birds were going to town on fresh fruits. Silver-throated Tanagers are everywhere in Costa Rica but its hard to not look at them, for reasons I suspect you understand.

As sharp as the Silver-throateds are, very few birds can touch what a Speckled Tanager brings to the feeding station.  It's been two years since I took these photos and I still can't believe this is a real bird. This creature brings the facemlt like few I've ever seen.

The mind reels...and boggles. Talk about a crippler.

Crippling, blinding, facemelting...this bird has it all.  This was a species that I first saw in a field guide, thought "Oh, that looks pretty cool", then saw in real life and thought "Holy shit! How come no one told me about these things?".

Although completely outmatched by the Speckled Tanager in boldness and looks, it was still nice to see a Thick-billed Euphonia come in to join the morning tanager salad.  If you haven't birded south of the border, euphonias of different species are common throughout Central America and occur in a variety of habitats.  I wouldn't be surprised if one showed up in the U.S. someday...for example the distance between Scrub Euphonias in Mexico and McAllen, TX, is shorter than the distance between McAllen and Kingsville.

Above the fruit fray a Blue-headed Parrot stopped in for  a few minutes to catch some sun.  This singular (and very easy to identify) parrot was the only one of the trip, if I remember correctly.

This hawk is a Roadside Hawk.  Along with Gray Hawks, this is one of the most abundant and highly visible raptor species in the country (from a car, anyway), and they can indeed be found along roads and in a variety of disturbed habitats.  We never did see a Gray-lined Hawk though, oh well gotta go back.

Scale-crested Pygmy-tyrant!  This post needed a real rainforest bird, one that will not be drawn into the open by the allures of fresh fruit or sunlight.  This bird was ricocheting around in the foliage right in front of us, flashing it's gigantic, ridiculous crest that is 100% not visible in any of the photos I got. Awesome bird though.

While walking around the woods, we were greeted by a small flock of Crested Guans on the trail. Not an unusual event in many parts of Costa Rica by any means, but as a pinche gringo it takes some getting used to.  If you had only seen turkeys a couple times before and then walked in to a flock of them, you would find it weird too.

More to come from the Southern Pacific Slope...eventually.

Colibris and More Crushed at La Cinchona

Hello Ms. Coppery-headed Emerald, how does it feel to be COMPLETELY CRUSHED? Did I even know what you were before you were flying around mere feet in front of my face? No. Complete and utter brainbird. This was one of the signature species at La Cinchona, where some of the finest geriatric birding of the trip went down. And believe me, we did a lot of geri birding.

You have not experienced life until you feel the mighty wind of a VIOLENT SABREWING thrusted into your ear. I may have had an ear drum blown out by this oversized and highly dominant hummingbird, but my life has gotten a lot better.

Of course, they are actually called Violet Sabrewings, but my camera's flash rendered them a sort of intense blue in every photo...in good sun, they are a completely different color altogether. We had these birds at a number of sites (including away from feeders, believe it or not) and we grew to love them not only for their impossible size and color, but because they were the only hummingbird who had the balls to chase off Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds, widely regarded as the most annoying hummingbirds in Costa Rica.

Here it is...the Fifth Zonotrichia. This sparrow, who has broken the shackles of The Economy of Style, is incredibly common in Costa Rica. We were thankful, but wished there was more than one sparrow species around most of the time.

White-bellied Mountain-Gem.Green head, blue throat, white belly, mind = blown. I don't know much more about them other than that. La Cinchona was the only place we had this tricolored goodness.

Ghost Hermit....er, Green Hermit was another whopping hummingbird that blew everyone away. Before visiting La Cinchona I had seen all of one. This is a monstrous bird for a hermit, the curlewesque bill and fancy tail plumes have implications that we may all be better off ignoring. And yes, this is a lekking species, so watch out.

This bird wasn't getting the oohs and ahhs from people that some of the other birds were, but I was more than happy to stare at all the Green-crowned Brilliants coming to the feeders. The fact that they were one of the less camera-shy birds definitely helped.

This is a humbly-feathered hembra, I'll put some photos of el macho up in the next La Cinchona post. Still, I think she's a lot better looking than most other hummingbirds out there, don't you think? The bill length and thickness seems pretty unique.

"GODDAMMIT COMMON BUSH-TANAGER! This is my banana! That's your banana! Don't even look over here with that bizarre half eye-ring!" - Silver-throated Tanager.

I'm not sure how I went for the whole blog without saying it, but isn't this thing facemelting? Christ, that is a well put-together bird. Addicted to bananas yes, but completely stunning.

Well, I'm out here on Santa Cruz Island without my computer (the battery completely gave up, so its in a coma), without my birdcrusher (Nikon is fixing it) and without time to bird, blog or take photos...but I'm getting paid to watch birds, so its practically pura vida out here!