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.

Costa Rica Birding with Zick!

So yeah. I went to Costa Rica. Just back, in fact, as of Thursday March 6.  I was gone for 12 days. Way to kick the stuffing out of an endless winter. I canned a bunch of winter birding blogposts before I left, because I care about you, my readers, and I wanted you to have something to gnaw on while I was gone. I’ll admit it—I was a hot mess before I left. Fed up to my eyeballs with this horrific winter. Seeing no end to it. Wanting out in the worst way. And yet on the scale of all possible human travails, winter weariness is as nothing. I knew that, but I couldn’t get out from under it.

I was all balled up, too, about the Costa Rica trip, because it would be the first time I’d ever had the responsibility of leading people on a 12-day birding trip in the tropics. I’m used to leading 5-hour birding trips. Where everybody sees their birds and goes back to camp and then we do it again the next morning, and maybe one more, and then it’s over. This would be being “on” all day long for 12 days, in front of 12 people. And I wasn’t sure I could do it. I knew I could show people a good time, but I didn’t know if I could have a good time doing it, maintain an acceptable level of nice for such a prolonged period. I’m an introvert, plain and simple, and it scared me. My comfort zone is at my drawing table, or in the woods alone or with one other person. I can turn it on if I need to, but oh, get me back to the studio, the woods, the hayfield so I can think. For this reason, I'd resisted all prior offers to lead trips, no matter how sexy the destination. But Holbrook Travel made it all seem doable, attractive, even, and I decided to take the plunge.

I had planned to publicize the trip on my blog and maybe Facebook, but I never got the chance, because it filled up so quickly. I took flyers to two of my Ohio talks last spring and bam! the trip was full. I apologize to all those who might have wanted to go, who never even heard about it. I guess it’s a good problem to have, not to have to beat the bushes for trip participants.

 I finally got packed and got my bags and me down there and met my supercool co-leader, Mario Cordoba, and felt the warm breeze and saw a million flowers all blooming madly and I knew it would be OK. More than OK. Great. Intense. The people all seemed nice and compatible and the birds were good in the hotel garden. I couldn’t sleep that first night, though, for worrying about whether I was up to it all. Oh Zick. Oh ye of little faith. Truth to tell, Mario did ALL the hard stuff. He knew what birds we'd see, what stops we'd make, and carried the scope and dealt with the lodges and set the schedule. I was just there for sparkle and help in getting people on birds, to do a couple of talks and just generally help move things along.

So the next morning I got up, bleary and fraught but trying to act reasonably normal, and we climbed in a bus and took off for Selva Verde, Holbrook Travel’s proprietary lodge. It’s in the Caribbean lowlands near Sarapiqui.

 The first thing I pointed out when we got out of the bus was a male green honeycreeper pulling a female’s tail. She was squawking something awful. He kept chasing her down and yanking on her tail. Somebody asked me if it was courtship. “I don’t think so. I think he’s just pulling her tail, that’s what I think.” And a couple of people laughed, and we were off.

 

As we made our way to our rooms a green and black poison arrow frog hopped into view, keeping with the Seafoam Green theme. And I freaked out, because this was my first-ever poison arrow frog. Right there at my feet. I wanted to kiss it, but didn’t, because I suddenly no longer wanted to die. I wanted to live, and look at birds for the next ten days with a bunch of good people who wanted to do the same.

A black river turtle smiled at us from a pool. He wanted a chunk of sammitch, I was pretty sure of that, and said as much. And someone pointed to a sign that said PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE TURTLES.  Ha! Turtles can be hard to read, but this one wasn’t. We laughed again. We would laugh a lot in the next 11 days. 

Nearby, a big bull green iguana draped hisself over a branch. 

And a giant female golden orb weaver (Nephila clavipes) had a chat with her minuscule reddish hopeful mate. Who was also hoping not to be wrapped up and eaten as a snack. Her abdomen was as long as my thumb.

Yes, it was all going to be OK. It was going to be great. It was going to be birding Costa Rica with Zick and Mario!! (whom I thank for keeping this all accurate, and so much more).