Costa Rica - Part 2

So before moving away from the coast, what else to report.
Our Hotel whilst there (Villa Lapas) was on the river which was only 50 yards from our room, sadly we were really only there to have breakfast and get out, usually getting back as it was getting dark, so despite the fantastic gardens and forest around us it was difficult to pick things up:
We did see, Northern Waterthrush, Great Kiskadee, Blue and Grey Tanager, Yellowish Flycatcher, Summer Tanager, Scarlet Macaw and Woodcreeper. On the non birding front, plenty of Iguana and J.C. Lizards

Blue Grey Tanager

Great Kiskadee

'Murky' Woodcreeper

Flycatcher

Scarlet Macaw

Distant Summer Tanager taken through the coach window

After this it was a 4 hour drive up to our next hotel where we were stopping for 7 nights, near Meulle about 1 hour from the Arenal Volcano.

Our Hotel here had great gardens and was again on the river, after unpacking we went for a wander around to get our bearings. Seeing:
Spotted Sandpiper, Short Billed Dowitcher, Tanagers galore (Palm, Blue Grey, Golden Crowned, Passerinis), Northern Waterthrush, Woodcreeper, More Iguana, Ruddy Ground Dove......)

Over the next few days we made a few trips out to the Arenal Volcano area where we had a cable car ride over the rain forest, walked trails through the forest, visited the old Lava Flows and had a go on a zip wires across a valley over the forest which was awesome!

From these trips we added not a huge amount, but these are some of the highlights:

Grey Hawk

Coati

Montezuma Oropendola

White-throated Magpie Jay

Eyelash Palm Pitviper

Great-tailed Grackle

Wedge-billed Woodcreeper

Borad Billed |Motmot
The light was terrible and had nowhere to keep the camera still!

Rufous-tailed Jacamar

White-tailed Hawk

Part 3, to follow......................................................
Link to the photos: Costa Rica Photos

Birds, Birds and more Birds in Costa Rica !!! - Part 1

We have been off the air for a while, mainly because we have just come back from 2 weeks in Costa Rica. What a place, we were on an organised trip that included some wildlife excursions, so bearing that in mind we still managed over 140 species of birds, plus Crocs, Sloths, Monkeys, Raccoons, Squirrels, Frogs, Bats, Snakes, Lizards and Insects!

This time of year it's still rainy season, so you tends to get lovely mornings and wet afternoons so most of the wildlife activities are in the morning. We started off with a couple of nights in the Capital, San Jose, the bird count started in the trees outside the hotel, can't believe the very first bird we saw out of a City Centre Hotel was a Hoffman's Woodpecker! (ignoring the 1000's of Feral Pigeons!)

So the hard part for this post is what and how many photo's to use out of the 2800 shots that we took! That's why having been back a week we are only just getting down to putting something on the blog. I will put the best and record shots on Flickr and put the link on the galleries page and at the bottom of this post.

Whilst waiting for my photo processing to finish, I did a tot up of the birding scores:
Species Seen:   151
New Species:   141

There were a few species that eluded us that other bird minded members of our group had seen, but that's the luck of the draw, anyway only another 750 species left to see if we ever visit Costa Rica again!

So after San Jose, we spent 3 nights on the Pacific coast, where we visited the Manuel Antonio & Carara National Parks, plus a 3 hour cruise along the Tarcoles River and estuary where we experienced Heron Heaven!

Our first trip out was to Manuel Antonio NP, the highlight though was on the way there when we stopped for a scenic photo opportunity, luckily I took the big gun (500mm lens) out with me just in case and took this:

These were followed by a Magnificent Frigatebird and Brown Pelican, sadly no photo of the Frigatebird and a poor shot of the Pelican as I was concentrating on the Scarlet Macaws. On to the park..

We picked up a local guide at the entrance to the park which was well worth while as even though we had bought the Helms Costa Rica Field Guide, you can't go flicking through 900 pics looking for something, we would get nowhere! Pen and paper was order of the day and the camera of course, but you can't photograph everything (even though I try my best!)

We saw some great non-avian species in the Park, Howler,

White Faced and Squirrel Monkeys, Two and Three Toed Sloth, Raccoon, Iguana and Turtle, topped off with half an hour swim in the Pacific. On the bird front we picked up:
Barred Hawk, Black-hooded Antshrike, Broad-winged Hawk, Cerulean Warbler, Chestnut-backed Antbird, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Fiery-throated Hummingbird, Great-tailed Grackle, Inca Dove, Red-crowned Woodpecker Red-winged Blackbird, Riverside Wren, Tropical Kingbird, Tropical Pewee and Violet-crowned Woodnymph.

The next day we went to Carara NP only 10 minutes from our hotel, with a stop first on the main road to have a look at our first Crocodiles from a bridge over the Tarcoles River:

We had another local guide at Carara, this one was a bit of an eco-warrior whilst very knowledgeable about all the flora and fauna, it was bit like being preached to. Again in the rain forest it's tough to see birds unless you are really lucky, we heard plenty but saw diddly until the very end when we picked up:

Buff Rumped Warbler

Rose-throated Becard

The next day was a trip on the Tarcoles River and estuary, this was just amazing, when our guide said the highlights would be Herons I was a tad disappointed, should have done more research, they were just amazing. Plus we even managed to see a bird named after us, the Willet! (not quite the right spelling but close enough)
Herons:

Little Blue Heron

Green Heron

Yellow Crowned Night Heron

Bare Throated Tiger Heron

Boat Billed Heron

In addition to the Herons, we saw Snowy Egret, Cattle Egret, Great White Egret, Black Necked Stilt, Frigatebird, Wood Stork, Neotropic Cormorant, White Ibis, Willet, Whimbrel, Semipalmated Plover, Western Sandpiper, Turkey Vulture, Black Vulture, Common Black hawk, Yellow Headed Caracara, Osprey, Mangrove Swallow, Great Kiskadee, Tropical Kingbird, Short Tailed Hawk, Turquoise Browed Motmot and Stripe Headed Sparrow, just awesome.

Part 2, to follow......................................................
Link to the photos: Costa Rica Photos

Bittern-ly Disappointed at Upton Warren!

Stuck working on Tuesday and the weather was decent, then watching the forums, as you do, well I do anyway, I saw that a Bittern had turned up at Upton, so looked at my workloads and thought with a fair wind I could get done by 4, so checked with Tina to see if she was up for it,  as we haven't seen one so far this year and we had a plan!

So we got away and arrived at Upton about twenty to five, Sadly the Bittern wasn't aware of our plan and according to the others around it had disappeared into the reeds not to be seen again. We normally don't 'twitch' but as it's only 25 minutes away, it was worth taking a chance.

Luckily the Water Rail gave us some glimpses and two Kingfishers shot past, I didn't see them but everyone else did! I was trying to sort my camera out which was doing strange things, then packed up completely! Disaster.... as we are off to Costa Rica next week!

So back to birds, the usual was about on the Moors, with Shoveler and Little Grebe showing particularly well. A couple of Herons kept disturbing the Gulls so they were getting up en-mass quite a lot. The Cormorants were very active and a Kestrel did a fly by. We stayed a couple of hours until it was getting gloomy but the Bittern wasn't going to come out, so off home.

So no pictures to add to the post today, I took my camera into Halesowen and was told at least £150 as the Mirror control unit was bust! Plus time to order the parts, so no chance for getting it fixed by Wednesday next week. So as a new body wasn't that much more than the repairs, it had to be ordered, should have it Friday!

Another Stroll, this time Middleton Lakes...

I was thinking of doing some jobs around the house Saturday, but what the heck the sun was shining, so a snap decision was made and we thought we'd head over to Middleton for a couple hours on the afternoon, as we hadn't been since June and wanted to see what it was like now that the hide is done and the new screens are in place.

No wardens about so it was a good job I had made a note of the code to get in the new hide, but more about that later.

The feeders just past the Car Park were very quiet, ie nothing as we went past, most disappointing (people with noisy children and dogs about!) We saw and heard very little on the way to the reserve, just a Robin and a Great Tit that was it! We stopped for our first coffee at the platform off the path to the reserve, but apart from Mallard and Coot there was nothing much about apart from loads of splendid dragonflies:

Then a couple of Butterflies:

Once over the canal and out onto the reserve it perked up a bit; Mallard, Swan, Little Egret, Coot, Moorhen, Lapwing, Shoveler, some Gadwall. We decided to walk around anti clockwise and headed over to the old screen (looking decidedly tatty now) As we walked on we were slightly disappointed as to how high the grass and reeds were as being both fairly short we couldn't see a thing over the lakes, so headed over to the river which was deserted.

We then headed down to the first new screen (some sign post would be nice as there are 2 tracks we took the second and ended up in the roped off area adjacent to the screen) The screen gives good views and will be good a bit later in the winter I think. So onward, we went for Coffee number 2 at the picnic bench by the river view. All we added at this point was a Blue Tit! Was hoping for the Kingfisher that we saw here last time, but no luck.

So down to the hide, we let ourselves in and were immediately surprised by the size of it, you could have a party in there! The views are good and I think in the spring it will be excellent. So what about birds, well in addition to what we had already seen, we added Grey Heron, Cormorant, Greylag and Canada Geese, Great Crested Grebe, Shelduck, Wigeon and a Pintail (I think). We scanned for waders but couldn't find one! I did see one fly across but it landed behind some scrub never to be seen again! So as we were pushed for time (aren't we always) we carried on and were immediately rewarded with an obliging Wheatear:

These photo's bring me to another gripe about the revamped Middleton, the new fences, shocking if you'll pardon the pun. They are just plain unsightly and they are everywhere, not bird watcher friendly at all. I will go as strong to say as we hate them, surely there's a better option.

We headed back for a final stop at the screen overlooking the Jubilee Wetlands, again we searched for waders but with no luck, we had been hoping for Ruff, Sandpipers (especially Curlew Sandies) but despite being patient we couldn't find any. All we added were 10 Pheasants! 

So in summary we still feel that Middleton is very much a work in progress with lots of promise. We will see, probably pop over again in November.

Some record shots:

A Stroll Around Hyde Park

After a very hectic few days in London (went to see the Mousetrap, Fleetwood Mac at the O2, a pub Crawl and a Comedy Club) we had a chilled out Sunday and went for a walk and a lovely lunch sitting by the Serpentine with a cheeky glass of wine in Hyde Park.

As we sat a Heron flew in just a few feet from us to add to all the Pigeons, Greylags, Canada Geese, Black Headed Gulls, Lesser Black Backs, Coots, Moorhens and Great Crested Grebes so a very pleasant time was had (the Thai Crab Salad was very nice too!)

After lunch we continued our stroll around the Serpentine and were surprised to come across some Egyptian Geese (7) including a couple of Juveniles. This was quickly followed by Mallard and a few Tufted Duck.

We then came across another cafe, so time for tea and a pastry. We sat at the waters edge again and added a Grey Wagtail to the tally.

So on with the walk and as you might expect we had a fleeting glimpse of a Ring-necked Parakeet, we could hear them most everywhere but they were difficult to spot in the tall trees among the greenery.

So apart from the usual birds you might find in a park we also added a few Cormorant. So having just gone for a walk in Central London (no camera or bins!) we clocked 21 species, not too shabby!

Finally on our drive back we came up the M40, so saw plenty of Red Kite around Wycombe/Oxford. We did notice though that the last one we saw was way past Banbury, so they do seem to be ranging farther north, so good news for us in the West Midlands, just need to add one to the garden list now !