Bronzed Cowbird Archives - Retired in Costa Rica

April 26, 2021April 25, 2021

Immature Bronzed Cowbird?

I’m having trouble identifying this bird, but with the Merlin App and Cornell online, the closest match seems to be a juvenile or immature male Bronzed Cowbird or possibly one of the other cowbirds, but for this location, most likely bronzed.

As the wind has settled down, I’m just now getting only a few birds in my close trees and those have been mostly the Yigüirro or Clay-colored Thrush (singing a lot!) and an occasional Rufous-naped Wren or one of the dove/pigeons. I see more birds flying over but not landing in my trees. 🙂

“A bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”
-Maya Angelou

HEALTHCARE NOTE: Today is the day I am again scheduled to begin radiotherapy for my cancer and in the next few days I will share updates here while spending 4 nights a week in the big city of San Jose, Costa Rica every week for 6 weeks.

¡Pura Vida!

October 8, 2018

Breakfast Birds Today

The Bronzed Cowbird above fooled me at first because his eyes or irises are not red, but then I read that the juvenile has a dark or black iris. ID is always a challenge but also part of the fun. Both of these birds joined me for breakfast this morning around 6:30 or later, along with a Kiskadee and a Yigüirro.

Below is the Blue-crowned Motmot, one of my favorite birds here. But I have had better shots than this. Here he is in the shadows and a good way off with his magnificent tail partly hidden and it appears broken. Still, this is part of the joy of living in the tropics! And my terrace! Plus this morning is practice for tomorrow’s trip! 🙂 Another post to follow this, introducing my next trip.

Blue-crowned Motmot with one tail feather missing

And since the header format cropped off his tail, here is another shot of the Bronzed Cowbird:

Everyone likes birds. What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird?

~David Attenborough

December 19, 2016

Tarcoles Birds, Post 2 of 2

Post 1 was yesterday with 14 more photos of birds only. We used the Jungle Crocodile Safari for this visit and saw more birds than any other tour provided so far. The 8:30 AM tour. Presented in order of camera image numbers – I’m getting lazy! 🙂 We saw about 35 species of birds and I got somewhat decent photos of about 24. We saw one Scarlet Macaw, but no photo of it behind leaves.