Macaw Magic

When the macaw and monkey show subsided, most of our group wandered on down the lane on Don Alvaro's finca to see what we could see. I had heard macaws screaming over the river just downhill, and I wanted to see them fly.

On our way we came upon a most remarkable fruiting shrub, which was full of the most remarkable birds, like this golden-hooded tanager.

An olive-backed euphonia glowed in the leaves.

Green honeycreepers never fail to draw gasps for their intense sea-green plumage, their velvet black masks. The red eye and yellow bill, just cherries on top.

It was a tree full of wonder. In this photo: two golden-hooded tanagers, a green honeycreeper and two red-legged honeycreepers. Can you find the second one?

There commenced a display interaction between two male red-legged honeycreepers, in which they rapidly stretched skyward, then bowed, showing each other their turquoise beanies. I was put in the unprecedented position of being a touch mad at a gorgeous green honeycreeper for placidly bombing the shot. Derrr!

This happens to me all the time in Ohio. Durn green honeycreepers, always wantin' in. 

A male white-collared manakin played coy. Sigh. My best shot. It can be very difficult to get a decent photo in dense vegetation. I wanted more of this velvety wonder, but never got it.

A purple-crowned fairy (hummingbird) slept on a distant bough. I crept toward it and photographed it without frightening it, then crept back. Such an elegant bird. I'd have loved to get closer but it wouldn't have been worth rousing the bird.

I wandered away from the group to see what was going on with two small birds who were furiously fighting. They were moving so fast I couldn't even tell what they were. I just shot as they looped and twirled over my head.

As I was to do so many times on the trip, I enlarged the image and quickly looked at the screen. No time for a binocular look--they wouldn't sit still. So I let the camera freeze them. Chestnut-sided warblers! My old pals from Connecticut! Now in drab winter plumage.

Memories flooded my mind. In June of 1986, I attended an International Ornithological Congress in Ottawa. I was just a baby bird painter. But I exhibited my plates for a proposed revision of Birds of Insular Newfoundland. I realized then, but even more keenly realize now, how lucky I was to be there, and I thank ornithologist Bill Montevecchi of the Memorial University of Newfoundland for helping me get there. I attended a lecture by the brilliant and sadly missed Russell Greenberg, who was to become a friend, mentor, illustration client and overall hero over the ensuing years. That might not have happened had we not met at the Congress. In the lecture, he stated that chestnut-sided warblers are mentally quite inflexible. Neophobic, he called it. They have one foraging strategy--underleaf gleaning--and stick to it. When they take fruit on the wintering grounds, they are very territorial, and will defend a favorite fruiting tree from conspecifics. If you're inflexible in your foraging, if you only take a few types of fruit, you're probably pretty cranky about anyone horning in on your stash of food. Not a flocker, to say the least. I was seeing this behavior right over my head.

And got one of my favorite photos of the trip by accident. A perfect map of a chestnut-sided warbler. The spread tail pattern blows me away. A pose that would do Audubon proud. My mentor's bird (one of so many). And all this against a bright white sky. All hail the nimble Canon 7D and 

70-300 IS L telephoto lens.

But it was only to get better. For the macaws were adjourning, out of the reach of annoying monkeys, in a treetop along the river.

A great green and a scarlet come in for a landing. HRAWWWWKKK!!!

Trailing clouds of glory they come...

  while I pirouette on the earth below, trying so hard to catch the fire in their wings

but it is all much too fast, too free

I still choke up looking at these last two photos. No words can capture how these birds affect me when they're flying

free against a towering sky.

I've said enough about that. Just look at them. No Balinesian artist could dream up better gods.

 Don Alvaro's farm is a magical place filled with cattle, yes, but its heart is populated with economically useless, high investment animals, all dearly loved and tenderly cared for.

Even the dogs were adorable. When we got out of the bus a huge pitbull mix flopped at our feet and thumped her tail. I was on it like Bluebonnet.

These little characters were playing with a bit of rubber, accepting my dog-starved lovin's. Oh I needed some animal contact!

I tried to tell Don Alvaro how much this afternoon had meant to me, and failed. Just clasped my hands in front of my chest and bowed, wordless. Gracias, Senor. Muchas gracias. I'd have to write it here and hope someone showed it to him someday.

As we rolled out the road, a water buffalo turned and walked toward us. He was imposing, to be sure, a great India rubber beast packed with muscle. 

Oh how I wanted to run to him, to scratch his ears and touch noses with him. Scary nose ring and all, I was sure he'd be as lovely as the female pitbull, the sensual curassow, the serene donkey, the jealous paca.  He tossed his head, showing off his curly horns. I wanted me some of that tightly packed buffalo magic.

Mario told me to stay on the bus. 

Next time, W.B. I'll sneak off and see you. We'll talk. I'll pick your ticks. It's a date.

Birds of Cerro Azul Meambar

 Oh, that cooperative collared trogon. What a beauty he was. The first painting I saw that made me want to be a bird painter, that made me think I could really do it, was by my friend Alex when I was a freshman in college. It was of a collared trogon. So, while appreciating the bird, I blasted back in memory to that moment, seeing the way he'd laid a shadow across its tail, and realizing I could probably do that, too.

A lot has rolled out from that little epiphany.

There were some mighty fine smaller birds at Cerro Azul, too, and we had nice sunshine and drier air to enjoy them. Here's a golden-hooded tanager, Tangara larvata. 

Let's have another look at that little beauty.

He was eating some tiny green fruits, balancing on the hair-fine twigs.

One of the big attractions of Cerro Azul Meambar is its hummingbird feeding station. Feeders are rigged up under the eaves of the visitor center. And we parked ourselves there and feasted our eyes.

Byron snaps a long-billed starthroat at close range.

White-bellied emeralds were confiding and common.

Much as I loved banging away at the feeder hummingbirds, I yearned to capture images of them in natural surroundings. So I wandered off to a patch of verbena and was well-rewarded by a cooperative rufous-tailed hummingbird.

Ahh. There's the shot I was after--feeding at real flowers!

A devilishly quick and difficult bird to capture is the long-tailed hermit, with its spectacular streamers. When it flies by, your brain just can't figure out what you've just seen, with these white dingies streaming out behind it and that scimitar bill before. It really wouldn't need the bandit mask.

But the jewel of Cerro Azul Meambar, the one they all come for, is the spectacular Violet Sabrewing. It comes thrumming into the feeders like a chimney swift, and by some miracle of iridescence it is purple in all lights and at all angles, not that frustrating blackish that so many hummingbirds seem to show.

This is a huge montane hummer, something like 6-7" long. Its wings make a correspondingly impressive low hum, so you know when it's around, and your heart just leaps.

I maneuvered around until I had the violet sabrewing against a soft green background; I wasn't wild about the babypoo yellow of the building as a backdrop for that glittering jewelbird.

Thank you, Violet Sabrewing.

Not far from the visitor's center, we ambled over to see the deluxe guest cottages under construction at Cerro Azul Meambar National Park. They were lovely, and the new lights outside attracted the most fabulous orthopterans and moths, a phenomenon that had not escaped this turquoise-browed motmot. He was cleaning up after the night's luminary siren had called innumerable large insects to bash themselves against the wall.

Mmm, katydid.

 glug glug glug

Works every time. Ahhhh.

The next day, on the way down, I grabbed one of my favorite shots from the trip through the bus window. Catch the ears on that little boy.