wildlife – Bird Noetz

Jeepers! Honey Creepers

Leaving the present, and terrible, international situation for a bit. Thinking of more pleasant things….

For us, going to the tropics has been out of the question for the past two years-like a lot of people, I guess. Darn pandemic! We’ve certainly missed those evening breezes coming off the Caribbean, and the smells of Latin-American food being cooked down the beach somewhere. One night, in desperation, we even watched that Jeff Bridges movie from the 80’s, the one shot at Isla Mujeres and Tulum. We ordered in Mexican food, drank a few bottles of Sol, and had fun picking holes in the plot. Still, it’s not quite the same.

At least, I can rummage through my pictures of tropical birds. These are from Costa Rica, from the Cloud Forest at Monte Verde. The more observant reader might notice that not all images are of birds. Well, any port in a mountaintop storm.

On that trip, V and I spent a few nights at a lodge near the Cloud Forest Reserve. Our driver, on his first run ever, checked google maps, and picked what was likely the worst road in the region to get us there. When we arrived an hour or so after the regular van, we were as well-shaken as a protein drink. Later on, we took a (guided) jungle walk at night, which came complete with tarantulas, little rivers of Leaf-cutter Ants, a ghostly Olingo high in the trees, and sleeping Trogons.

The next night was so windy that we thought the roof of our bungalow was going to blow off. At dinnertime, we huddled in our puffer jackets eating pasta and drinking Red Tapir Ale, thinking fondly of the beach we’d left behind at Playa Hermosa. Our birding tour of the Cloud Forest almost didn’t happen-the guide being afraid that jungle trees might fall on us. In spite of rain and wind, however,we ventured out and ‘got’ our ‘target birds – the Resplendent Quetzal and one of the loudest birds in the world, the Three-Wattled Bellbird (hard to see, but easy to hear).

Cloud Forest Night

Memories of Oaxaca

The Dancing Men

****************

They have faded into the valleys,

Those Kings who sipped

the thin mountain air

like gods.

Only we, the

Dancing Men remain in the high city,

waiting, waiting

for our own Gods to release us.

Prisoners still, we linger

on these misty pathways above the clouds.

MC 2001/2022

*The Dancing Men are 300 or so stone carvings of captives at the ancient Zapotec city of Monte Alban. Most look contorted, as if tortured and mutilated, and are thought to represent captives, most likely of high rank. Unfortunately, I can’t find the pictures I took of them.

Finally!

I’ve spent a lot of time searching for the Glaucous Gull. This Arctic visitor shows up on the west coast semi-regularly, but I just could never seem to, as Owen Wilson says in The Big Year “nail that sucker.” And I’ve really tried, really tried. I’ve gone to windswept Oregon beaches in January, landfills in March, Goldstream River with its spawned-out salmon lots of times. I followed up every report, within reason. I even spent the better part of a day at a sewage lagoon in Duncan, afraid to leave, but punished for staying, if you know what I mean. My reference picture might have been part of the problem–it’s possible.

In any case, I finally caught up with the culprit at Goldstream, the place where I had tried so many times before. indeed, the first bird I saw when I pulled up to park was the Glaucous Gull! The river was very high, drowning the more recent remains of spent Chum and Coho, and keeping all gulls close to the picnic area. My young bird was tugging hopefully at an almost bare fish skull, and getting very little sustenance from it, or so it appeared.

I must say that the bird didn’t closely resemble my reference pic except, maybe, for the beak, so I couldn’t really be faulted. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway!

Finding my bird, after so many failed attempts, had a curious effect. The marvellous sense of birding adventure that consumed me when, six of seven years ago, I rejoined the hobby had suddenly returned. I even posted a picture of the subject on my bulletin board! So, although it took awhile – “thanks Pal!”

Costa Rica Birds and Beasts Continued

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Black Vultures – Okay, we’re not pretty…useful, not pretty.

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White-throated Magpie Jay

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American Crocodiles – Tempisque River

Orange-fronted Parakeet

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Howler

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Bananaquit

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Rufous-naped Wrens

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Yellow-crowned Night Heron

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Oropendola Colony

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Orchid

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Clay-colored Thrush

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Stick Insect

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Variegated Squirrel

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I’m Done…

Costa Rica Wildlife

Decades ago, some friends and I planned to drive the Pan-American Highway from Vancouver BC to Tierra Del Fuego. It never happened. The 1956 VW van I’d rebuilt and camperized never made it to Costa Rica — the government of that country took the time to us well. I finally got to the, for me, fabled highway. Not as glamorous as I thought, incidentally. More important, I got to experience Costa Rica’s wonderful wildlife.

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Howler Monkey

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Ferruginous Pygmy Owl

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Red-legged Honeycreeper

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Crested Currasow

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Streak-backed Oriole

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Black-cowled Oriole

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Jabiru

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Black-headed Trogon

Turquoise-browed Motmot

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Yellowish Flycatcher

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White-fronted Amazon

Monteverde

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Monteverde Waterfall

We needed our down jackets up here. After a few nights of winds strong enough to move furniture, plus intermittent rain, we finally entered Monteverde’s Cloud Forest. Noisier than we expected. Three-wattled Bellbirds are the main culprits. Although they make, we think, some of the loudest bird calls anywhere, they are devilishly difficult to track down — even when they open their big mouths and bellow. But Bellbirds aren’t the only prizes. The Resplendent Quetzal tops the list of Cloud Forest must-sees. We get lucky. Gorgeous. So many more birds in this delightful country. I recorded over eighty lifers in Costa Rica and missed a few hundred more.

Three-wattled Bellbird

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Crested Guan

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Resplendent Quetzal

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Violetear

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Turquoise-browed Motmot

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Hoffman’s Woodpecker

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Palm Tanager

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White-eared Ground Sparrow

Owls

Our mild January weather is kaput. February began with a seriously rainy day but now it’s gone cold and there’s snow in the forecast. A good time to look back on my favourite bird pictures. I’ll start with everybody’s favourite — owls.

Barred Owl – Uplands Park, Victoria

Burrowing Owls – Imperial Valley, California

Eastern Screech Owl – Santa Ana, Texas

Great Horned Owl – Swan Lake, BC

Great Horned Owl – Victoria, BC

Short-eared Owl, Boundary Bay, BC

Western Screech Owl – Arizona

Barred Owl – Observatory Hill, Victoria

Great Horned Owl – Interurban Flats, Saanich

Snowy Owl – Bruce County, Ontario

Eastern Screech Owl – Rio Grande Valley, Texas

Long-eared Owl – Boundary Bay, BC

Texas Birds

Nice to get back to the Rio Grande Valley for a few days to visit the wonderful wildlife refuges where so many beautiful birds and butterflies find sanctuary …

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Great Kiskadee

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Roseate Spoonbills

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Great Blue Heron

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Black-bellied Whistling Duck

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Long-billed Curlew

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Tricolored Heron

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Verdin

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Clapper Rail

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Queen Butterfly

The Locals

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Around here it’s hard not to encounter Coast Blacktail deer. Most days, I see a half dozen or more. Bucks in rut seem particularly oblivious, driven as they are by the mating urge. Today, a fine-looking fellow and at least one doe wander the shoreline within meters of passersby. He’s alert, watching and sniffing the air. What’s at stake? I took shots of two big bruisers from the neighbourhood on another October day. They’re not buddies. They’ve already had a huge battle on the roads and in gardens. Now they’re exhausted, pausing to catch their breath before they go at it again. There’s a lot at stake and they won’t stop only when one breaks off combat and leaves the field. The winner gets the does, like the chap in the bay above. The loser gets nothing. Not that a victorious buck can feel secure. There’s always a challenger.

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Neusiedlersee, Austria

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Burgenland – Salt pond, vineyards and Roe Deer

It’s October 4 and it’s late in the year for Austrian birds, especially migrants. To maximize our chances, V and I elect to take a tour with Leander Khil, the author of a (the) book on Austrian birds, to the salt sloughs around Neusiedelersee, Austria’s large, shallow, steppe lake. The National Park here is partly in Hungary and the terrain seems, to us, very Hungarian, an impression reinforced by a herd of Hungarian Grey Cattle. These animals, once common, almost went extinct. They’ve been brought back from the edge, beautiful beasts with cloud-grey hides and long, black-tipped horns. We also spot a herd of Przewalski’s Horse, sometimes abbreviated to P-Horse. They’re too far off to see properly, much less photograph — a moving band of cinnamon and sand off in the distance. I’m delighted nevertheless. I first read about this last of the wild horse when I was a kid and hoped one day to see them. And now I have.

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Hungarian Grey Cattle

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P-Horse — Last of the Wild Horses

We pass a romantic-looking hut and draw well complete with bucket and beam, protected by law. Although they look traditional they were ‘made up’ for 1950s era films about the Empress Elizabeth, or Sisi, around whom a kind of cult has grown. They’re now preserved as genuine shepherds’ huts rather than film sets and apparently are described so on tourist brochures. I doubt I’ve ever seen a better example of history as a construct. No picture – sorry, Sisi fans.

Greylag Geese

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Curlew

Like most of Europe, Austria has suffered drought for several years. The seasonal salt ponds here have mostly dried up and are empty of shorebirds. A lone Greenshank flies over us, its call reminiscent of our Greater Yellowlegs, its North American cousin. We do spot several Eurasian Curlew happily harvesting bugs from grassy meadows but they’re as happy working the fields as they are the ponds, so the lack of water seems less important to them. Greylag Geese are here in abundance and there are many birds in the air – Skylark, Corn Bunting, European Siskin, Linnet, Goldfinch, Black Redstart and a European Jay. We make a side trip hoping for Crested lark. At first, nothing, but then one scampers out from behind a hay bale, followed by several more. Lovely birds with their pronounced crests. I’m fond of birds with crests. Cedar waxwings are one of my favourite birds. Northern Lapwings, fashionable crests blowing in the breeze, join the favourites list.

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Crested Lark

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Wheatear

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Northern Lapwings

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White Wagtail

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Corn Bunting

Because the National Park is a late development, much of it consists of scattered patches interrupted by vineyards, their berries protected with nets. Sometimes farmers droop acres of large mesh nets over and between rows and kill hundreds of birds. Proper netting procedure protects the fruit much better and doesn’t destroy birdlife.

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The Wrong Way to Protect Grapes

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Long-eared Owl

We side trip to a village cemetery where people are hard at work cleaning and maintaining graves, so unlike what generally happens in North America. We’re here for Long-eared Owls, which roost in this graveyard in winter. It’s V. who spots the first and then a second and finally a third. Even when she points them out to me I find it hard to see the birds. The owls located, Leander takes to a wayside with a view for a delicious lunch of local products provide by St. Martin’s Therme and Lodge. Fantastic. Thanks Leander for being such an excellent and knowledgeable guide!

	cran621 on Memories of Oaxaca
	Marcia on Memories of Oaxaca
	rkaneen on The Nechako
	cran621 on Finally!
	blhphotoblog on Finally!