Birding La Selva

La Selva Biological Reserve in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica is legendary for the studies that have been conducted there, for the reams of data and natural history amazement issuing from this intact lowland forest. I was beyond thrilled to finally visit, to have breakfast in the mess hall where so many storied tropical biologists have convened.

First bird of the morning? Snowy cotinga, just a settin' in a treetop with a couple of other friends. This spanking white bird needs only to perch in a treetop to make a statement or a breeding display visible for miles around. I made this photo with my iPhone adaptor, hooked onto Mario's 50 mm Swarovski scope. Digiphonescoping.

Yin and yang: a variable seedeater, glossy black.

A squirrel cuckoo, one of a pair tending a nest at the ballfield in camp. It gets its name from the squirrelly way it sort of hop-climbs through the trees. 

A fasciated antshrike hops in the undergrowth. You can see the hook on its bill which gives it its common name. This is a bill and a bird equipped to deal with the supersized insect meals of the Neotropics. Would hate to be a katydid on the other end of that weapon.

Everywhere, the dry trill of blue jean frogs. Yes, I love them and their name, too.

Whip-tailed lizard. I wonder why so many juvenile lizards have these neon tails? Bite this, it'll break off, and I'll be free to run off and grow another one. Just a guess. But why would you want to call attention to yourself at all, as a juvenile? You're not trying to find a mate. I'd think you're just trying not to be eaten. Whatever the evolutionary "reasoning," I'm grateful for that aquablue tail.

A pair of broad-billed motmots sat placidly right over the trail. What a special bird, a very small chunky motmot. Again, digiphonescoped.

I thought the first collared peccary we saw was a gift. Well, we were to be showered with such gifts as peccaries tiptoed through the forest all around the camp. What a treat to see these furry tropical porkers doing their thing, ignoring our adoring comments. 

A black-mandibled toucan plucks palm fruits. This was definitely getting surreal.

It was great, and then it got better. A pair of crested guans were hanging around a thicket. I saw a tiny flutter deep within, peered through, set the camera to manual focus, and somehow captured their chick. My first cracid chick. Look at those wings on such a downy young thing!! Clearly set to fly almost from hatch day. It was about the size of a robin. It was adorable. I got a photo. That's about as happy as Zick gets. 

The walk ended with the deep, low moaning of another cracid, the great curassow (remember the beautifully barred captive female at Don Alvaro's?) Well, this would be her mate. He was stuck up in a small tree like a bag of laundry, just moaning away. The Mutun (Tupi name for them in Brasil). That was another first for me--a displaying great curassow. Another digiphonescoped image. This setup lets you take closeups of birds from afar without disturbing them. It also handles the ridiculously low light levels in the forest very well. 

La Selva was doling out her treasures, one after another. It was a day to remember.

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.

Angry Monkeys

I was talking to the animals, Doolittle style, and making a big big fuss over the female great curassow at Don Alvaro's wonderful animal sanctuary. And the little paca was sooo hurt and jealous. If ever there were an accusatory paca, this is it. I am pretty sure that had I been able to get into the enormous flight cage where it lived, it would have climbed onto my lap, demanded a belly rub, and given me what-for. 

Note the hands. I was smitten with this snooty little guinea pig on stilts.

Speaking of that flight cage: It's more like a hacking cage. About 10' off the ground there are several enormous holes cut in the chain link, and the macaws go in and out of them. It's like a big halfway house for them. If they want to feel safe, they go into it and shelter from rain under its partially covered roof. If they want to fly up and down the river or tussle in the treetops, they make their way out. What an elegant system, a system based on trust.

I was delighted to find great green and scarlet macaws enjoying the fruits of a palm right in Don Alvaro's garden. 

I always much prefer taking photos of birds in natural habitat, and these could possibly be useful for publication somewhere.

Extravagant, that's what they are. Flaunting their colors.

I loved watching them fly from tree to tree.

Soon, however, trouble arrived in the form of several wild white-faced capuchins. 

Monkeys suffer for our perceptions, having our anthropomorphism so freely applied to them. But I gotta say: the look on this monkey's face says it all. She was a real piece of work. She wanted the peanuts that Don Alvaro was offering to the macaws, and she resented their having any of them.

So she'd rush the big birds and race to the peanut bowl and grab double handfuls of the nuts and then gobble them down. Which was OK. But then, when the peanuts were all gone, she spent the afternoon racing through the treetops deliberately flushing the macaws for no apparent reason.  Showing off?

Planning an attack on a scarlet macaw which was minding its own business. She reminded me of a tiny catcher behind the plate. 

I had to smile when Mario said, "I don't like those capuchins. They are just nasty animals, always making trouble."

The macaws retreated to the palms to eat.

and continued their storm-trooper like passes through the yard. Cracked squawks and screams rang out continually, but they seemed perfectly in place, not dissonant as they are when echoing off the walls of a room.

Seeing the birds free to do whatever they pleased all day long was such a treat. I wished there were more places like this, where macaws could be free to realize their potential, to pick mates and perhaps raise young.

How I wished there were still tens of thousands of scarlets and great greens in Costa Rica, instead of just hundreds.

We primates are always finding something to be perturbed about. Even in Paradise.