One of the birds that is almost always somewhere around the garden! See more of my photos in the Gallery: Great Kiskadee, Pitangus sulphuratus. Just one photo today . . .
¡Pura Vida!
Great Kiskadee
Young Adult Woodpeckers
And that is my first impression of these male & female Hoffmann’s Woodpeckers, Melanerpes hoffmannii (my gallery link). But these days everybody looks young to me! 🙂
New Book: Wind Spirits!
Sometimes one of my photo books “just happens” and not as originally planned! 🙂 I now give a gift book to each of my favorite lodges each time I visit and no longer do custom books for the lodges, so I needed a new gift book (which other visitors to that lodge will enjoy). Plus I sometimes give one of my doctors or other persons serving me a gift book and was needing a newer and fresher book.
I started out with the idea of just 8-10 photos in each of 3 categories: birds, butterflies and landscapes and would call it “Birds, Butterflies & the Bucolic.” (I like aliterations!) But I started curating photos of birds first. After the Hummingbirds I started choosing from the many water birds (seashore and freshwater) and collected so many I liked that I suddenly changed my mind and said it would be a “water birds book.” And even that turned out to be more photos and pages than intended, but I am pleased with this latest creation! 🙂
As always, you can see it without buying. Simply click on the cover image below or the web address that follows. In the bookstore page (link) under the cover photo is a PREVIEW button. Click that and you can see the entire book electronically for free! Click a page to turn it. 🙂 And I hope you enjoy my latest effort to be creative! 🙂 And if you like electronic books, there’s a cheaper PDF version you can download immediately.
CLICK above book cover or go to this address for a free PREVIEW: https://www.blurb.com/b/12521048-wind-spirits
¡Pura Vida!
Plain-capped Starthroat
The Plain-capped Starthroat is new to me, thus a lifer or first time seen bird.
White-winged Dove
The most commonly seen dove or pigeon in my garden in Atenas is also one of those seen & liked on my first trip to Costa Rica in 2009. That photo is included below along with today’s photo. It was the first bird I ever photographed in Costa Rica, right after taking a taxi to Hotel Aeropuerto near SJO Airport in Alajuela. As the sun was setting in the hotel garden, I went out just before dinner and this was the first bird I found! 🙂 Our birding tour group had dinner together and the next morning we flew to Puerto Jimenez where I photographed that Tropical Kingbird I shared a couple of days ago. Good memories! 🙂 See more and better photos in my GALLERY: White-winged Dove, Zenaida asiatica.
¡Pura Vida!
Tropical Kingbird . . .
. . . is one of the many birds I loved discovering on that first trip to Costa Rica in 2009 and still smile every time I see one! This one sort of looks like a little guard watching over my garden! 🙂 See more of my photos of this charming CR bird in my GALLERY: Tropical Kingbird, Tyrannus melancholicus. Including that first one at Lookout Inn, Carate, Corcovado National Park and another one on that same trip in Puerto Jimenez. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Continue reading “Tropical Kingbird . . .”Most Common Bird This Week . . .
. . . is the Rufous-backed Wren, Campylorhynchus capistratus (my gallery link) with youngsters recently born and all chattering around everywhere it seems. Their chattering makes me think that they are miniature Chachalacas! 🙂 Two shots, one from above & one from below . . .
¡Pura Vida!
Continue reading “Most Common Bird This Week . . .”Groove-billed Ani
If you look close, you can see the grooves in his bill. And yes, there is a “Smooth-billed Ani” found only in the South Pacific of Costa Rica, while this one can be seen in the northern 2/3 of the country. They are semi-regular in my neighborhood and you can see my other photos of this bird in my GALLERY: Groove-billed Ani, Crotophaga sulcirostris from several locations in Costa Rica. Here’s 3 shots from my garden 2 days ago . . .
Turquoise-browed Motmot
This is one of the lesser seen species of the 6 Motmot species in Costa Rica, found here only on the northwest coast, north of Manuel Antonio. I have photographed most in my neighborhood with two in Puntarenas Province at Jaco & Tambor Bay, plus one in Guanacaste at Hacienda Guachipelin, Rincon de la Vieja. See my other photos in the Turquoise-browed Motmot Gallery. Or read about them on eBird. Found from Southern Mexico to Northwestern Costa Rica only.
¡Pura Vida!
Health Update . . .
Doing well, just a little low energy and sleeping 8-10 hours at night. 🙂 But the continued oral antibiotics are working, I’m sure, and soon I will be back to a “normal” old man! 🙂 Catching a few photos in garden now and have a backlog from July, so the blog will continue! 🙂
Yellow-faced Grassquit
This little bird feeds in the grasses usually, though I caught him yesterday afternoon in my neighbor’s dead tree. He is the Yellow-faced Grassquit, Tiaris olivaceus (eBird link) which I have seen multiple times in my neighborhood along with a sighting at Curi-Cancha Reserve in Monteverde and at Rio Celeste Lodge near Tenorio NP. My other photos are in my gallery titled: Yellow-faced Grassquit.
¡Pura Vida!
Continue reading “Yellow-faced Grassquit”