Tag: Alajuela

Since around the first of the year I have been using the sound identification feature of my Merlin phone app to identify birds. For years I only used it to identify birds by photograph. I was slow to adapt to the new sound recording ability, always hesitant to add new technology, like the old man that I am! 🙂 But when I did, I was so surprised at how easy it was to punch a button and record singing birds, usually many at at the same time! With it identifying each one and highlighting the ones singing at that moment! While at Carara Park a week or so ago I heard almost 3 times as many as I photographed! But I still prefer photos! 🙂

So while preparing my breakfast the other morning I turned it on and in 10 minutes it recorded 13 different species singing around my house! Including 2 Trogons! (Black-headed & Gartered). So I took my camera with me to the terrace to eat breakfast and hopefully see and photograph some of those 13. I got useable photos of only one! 🙂

It was the Yellow-green Vireo, Vireo flavoviridis (eBird link) shown by eBird to appear from the southern edges of the USA to the northern edges of South America, so in other words, mostly a Central American! 🙂 Here’s 3 shots from my terrace the other morning while drinking coffee after breakfast. And to be fair, I did see 2 others of those 13 recorded, but did not get useable photos of the Clay-colored Thrush or the Blue-gray Tanager (their back sides). And you can see other photos of this one in my Yellow-green Vireo Gallery which I’ve seen only 2 other times here in Atenas and nowhere else. Now here’s 3 shots from the other morning, including one of him/her singing . . .