Week one in Heredia Province
I love this country and the people are so friendly and helpful. I am staying with a retired couple and, although the children have moved out years ago, I have already met much of the family. Luckily for me Xinia and Guillermo don’t speak English so our conversation is all in Spanish. Limited in content, to be sure, but since they love the out of doors and know a lot about birds, we can amuse ourselves talking with google’s help and hands and feet when necessary!
Heredia is a town with about 140,000 people and there is a hustle and bustle throughout. The house where I am staying is in a much quieter neighborhood and the 30 minute walk to school is pleasant. I see and hear a lot of Melodious Blackbirds on the way and I’ve also spotted the Rufous-throated Sparrow and a White-tailed Kite, which goes into a stall when hunting rodents.
Almost every day I find time to walk to the little park in the center of town with my 400mm 5.6 lens and have found several birds to spend time with. Strangely, the national bird of Costa Rica is the Clay-colored thrush. Not particularly interesting to see, but it is found everywhere in the country and apparently has a nice call. Here’s a baby.
The Great Kiskadee is always fun to see and the light on this one was helpful.
The blackbirds are very loud and very active. Female at the fountain and the male looking upwards.
As long as I’m sharing the less colorful birds, here is the palm tanager, simple but sweet.
Then there are the birds we see in the summer – Baltimore orioles and yellow warblers, and relatives of our birds – the tropical kingbird, and a different woodpecker (Hoffman’s) seen here in the splendor of beautiful flowers at the top of a tree.
Parrots everywhere and loud as can be. I hear them but I don’t see them most of the time. However one day I didn’t give up so here are a couple of shots. Unfortunately, the light was poor that day.
Not to ignore the 4-legged creatures, here is the variegated squirrel, very common here. Someone left some coconut for them inside this tree. I don’t like them in my attic but I always find them fun to watch.
Lots of pigeons and a pretty white winged dove. I’ll spare you the pigeon shots!
On the weekend my family here in Heredia took me to a restaurant in the mountains where they feed both the people and the birds. Many beautiful birds come for a breakfast of bananas. Good for the birds and great for the people (even though the photography feels a little like cheating.)
Here are a couple of picture of the Crimson-collared Barbet, alone and in a group.
The other beautiful bird in the last picture is a Red-headed Barbet – both were new to me.
Another beautiful red and black bird is the more common Scarlet-rumped Tanager (male and female.)
The Emerald Toucanets were very busy at the sight. Also a young one waiting for food that never came. (First picture) Finally it flew to the fruit itself. I guess that was the idea!
The other 2 new birds for me were the Prong-billed Barbet and the silver-throated tanager.
Finally, I was so happy to see the summer tanager again. The last time I saw one it wouldn’t come out of the dark woods for love or money!
That it for this week.