Some end of season highlights

Amanda had caught a pair of these a couple of months ago, but I had yet to see one until yesterday, when we caught two, including this young male, which was still filling in the patchy spots of his beard. Violet-crowned Woodnymph


Also a new bird for us, the Checker-throated Antwren! We caught a pair, the checkery throated one being the male, and the other we were not sure about. It could have been a young male or an adult female, a conflict of ages and sexes that often occurs.





White-collared Manakins are definitely the most commonly captured bird here in Tortuguero. They're nice birds, but can get old, as most of them are either young, or female, leaving us without the good looks and white collar of the aptly named male. Until yesterday, we had only caught 2 or 3 males in three months, but somehow ended up with four for the day.


As a nice change to the usual we caught our third Red-capped Manakin of the year a few days ago. Though not the brilliant red of the adults, this young male gave us a look at the start of manakin manhood.


This post makes me realize how much I love pale-eyed birds.

PIPMAN

More banding in the park today, which of course means catching mostly Long-billed Hermits. Looking godly after release:


But it's also meant catching Wood Thrush the last two times


And little did we know, a Red-capped Manakin was on this side of the canal. Though I'm sure they can be found in many places on either side of the canal, we had only seen them at a more remote banding site our first week here.

Today we realized that part of the reason pictures of these Manakins can look so fake/surreal/doctored is that base of the red crown feathers are yellow (like the thighs) creating a weird gradient of yellow, orange and red when viewed from any angle but straight on.


Taking a rest before take off.

Man can

Saw my first trogans of the trip, Slaty-tailed, along with a pair of Blue Dacnis, and White-flanked Antwrens

We're still trying to figure Amanda's new macro lens...it worked great for some birds, like this Spotted Woodcreeper:


But all of the Red-capped Manakin pictures turned out a bit like this one, very bright and looking photo edited to hell, though I still like it. It was pretty bright where we were shooting, but maybe there's some odd quality to those fluorescent red feathers that make then particularly hard to capture...


More natural looking with the point and shoot: