From high and low

Ruddy Treerunner, usually seen in mixed flocks of woodcreepers, bush-tanagers, and other epiphyte searching birds.


Chestnut-capped Brush-finch, a young one with a yellow lower mandible and old wingcovs you could not miss


Yellowish Flycatcher


Male Amazon Kingfisher. The most common of the kingfishers seen on the boat ride in and out of Tortuguero


Female Amazon

Two Migrants

We're banding at our home base today, which means breakfast and coffee on the job, which is nice, duh. We're still working on orienting ourselves with each site and banding kit, finding that net numbers and references are not where or what we once thought...

Kentucky Warbler


Golden-winged Warbler


Gray-breasted Wood-wren




Chestnut-capped Brush-finches

Back

We're back! For the last week we have been banding at our chilly high elevation site, called Madre Selva. It was an awesome change in scenery, temperature, and birds from Tortuguero, and we had rooms to ourselves!

The land we stay and work on is owned by our boss's family and has only been operated as a banding site for a two or three years. The first house was our humble abode for the week, kept warmish (not at all) by a tiny wood stove.






Another plus to this site were the higher capture rates. Though we weren't rolling in birds, there were definitely a lot more caught and aside from a few of the warblers, they were, of course, new to me. Again, I found myself desperate for my 400mm of lens with every Flame-throated Warbler and Brush-finch I saw, but was forced to settle on in-hand pictures for now.

Collared Redstart


White-throated Mountain-gem


Chestnut-capped Brush-finch