Arcata Marsh

Arcata Marsh, for My World Tuesday (first post!)

We've been handed some pretty superb weather lately. Today I took advantage of it and went to the Arcata Marsh for a few hours. Didn't see anything out of the ordinary bird-wise, but the regulars were out and about.

From top to bottom: Dunlin and Least Sandpiper, Black-capped Chickadee (who actually sat still for a second!), Great Egret, Least Sandpipers (who were not paying attention to my stalking skills), American Pipit!, a good lookin' Northern Shoveler, Chestnut-sided Chickadee, Coot, Golden-crowned Sparrow eating something tasty, Least Sandpipers, Green-winged Teals, Egret, bunch of shorebirds, and a juvenile White-crowned Sparrow.

Mosaic Monday

Whoa. Took me quite a while to figure out how in the world to make a mosaic (I'm not to technically savvy, you see), but I did it. Go me! I decided to throw in some of my favorite Texas birds from last season - Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, Black-capped Vireo, Golden-cheeked Warbler fledgie and adult, and a Green Jay.

I've been researching the GCWAs for three years and miss the little guys already! They are adorable and I got pretty attached to them and their crazy little personalities (that's right, I just said they had personalities). I love running after the fledglings and watching them learn how to forage on their own.

I did some work with the Black-capped Vireos too...I tried all season to get a good photo of them - they are insanely hyperactive and they really like to make you crawl through some thick vegetation to find them! The GCWA and BCVI photos are from Hill Country/Real County.

The Green Jay is from a trip to south Texas. Beautiful birds. That was the first time I had seen them, I was pretty excited. And the Scissor-tailed is from Real County also...always a handsome and charismatic bird.

Check out mosaics at http://dearlittleredhouse.blogspot.com/search/label/Mosaic%20Monday

(sorry, I'm having a hard time getting used to macs and posting actual links!)

White-tailed Kite

This is one of the many White-tailed Kites that hangs out at Fay's Slough, just down the road from us. They seem to flush way too easily so I was pretty happy when this picture came out all right. I took this last week, on an extremely windy day (I lost my hat twice!). I always love seeing these birds, they're so regal looking!

This is my first post for Bird Photography Weekly (below) - looks like fun!

Camera Critters

All right then. It took me about an hour to figure out what a 'blog carnival' is, and I'm still not entirely sure on the subject, but I found this site (Camera Critters Meme) and the directions were helpful. So, this little guy is from one of the otter families at Humboldt Bay NWR that I've seen before. I was there a few days ago and briefly got to see my otter friends again as they stopped by and gorged on a few fish (that's what's in his mouth) before taking off again! So fun to watch!

Costa Rica Days 22 & 23 - Corcovado and Jimenez

We lounged around and walked along the river for a few hours this morning. Zac wasn't really in the mood for another 12-13 mile hike out I don't think. The temperature was really really hot today, so the water felt extra nice. Eventually, we packed out stuff up and started the hike out of Corcovado. It was a gorgeous hike, but pretty rough. It was basically all river and creek crossings on an extremely rocky bank. It was kinda painful on the old feet.

After about 4 or 5 miles, a random truck came out of the blue. There was no road...just the rocky bank. They didn't speak any English, but offered us a ride and we took it. I was a little hesitant only because I wanted to hike and not ride, but looking back, it's probably a good thing we did. The rest of the hike would have been in the sun the entire time, with the river and creek crossings and rocks. So, we got in the back of the pickup, which was totally full of stuff. I had to hang on for dear life and almost went flying off a few different times. The 8 mile drive took a pretty long time. We got dropped off in La Palma.

Once in La Palma, we got a taxi type thing back to Puerto Jimenez. That was a crazy drive too. It was sort of like a half pick up truck with the bed covered on two sides with canvas. We went over this bridge and lived to tell about it.

Once we got back to Puerto Jimenez, we went straight to the ocean and played for hours. Full moon equated to a great high tide. Man, we were really dirty after 4 days of backpacking in 100 degrees. Oh yeah! We went into town and had a few Imperials and pizza. I beat Zac at yahtzee again before we crashed.

(Feb 10)

Today we had no choice. We had to do laundry. While that was happening in town (we dropped it off with a sweet old lady), we played a serious game of dominos with Killian and his sister. Costa Rica vs the US. After 2 hours, we won. That was tons of fun, Killian's a good kid.

We grabbed our laundry and went to the ocean for a few hours. Later we sat in the sun and taught Killian what yahtzee was all about. He won. We hung out with Adonis and Killian for a while at night and said our goodbyes (in theory, were catching a 5 am bus).

Costa Rica Day 22 - Corcovado: Saving birds and guys with guns

This morning was interesting and frustrating. Here's why. We got an early start (about 05 30) and around 6 we encountered a mist net. (Sirena gets a lot of researchers and this week, an incompetent group of 6-7 Dartmouth undergrads and their even more incompetent professor were there).

The mist net was unattended and there was a Cocoa Woodcreeper in it. We didn't see anyone nearby so Zac waited about 30 minutes, while i went up and down the trail both ways - no one was around. I found two more mist nets - one with a Chestnut-backed Antbird and another with a Golden-crowned Spadebill. Zac took the first bird we found out since he has lots of experience with mist netting and then took the antbird out.

When we got to the Spadebill, it had been about almost an hour that they left the mist nets unattended!! How horribly irresponsible! Unfortunately, the spadebill was not doing well because of these people's lack of responsibility. Zac was blowing on her when the fools finally decided to act like they gave a damn about their nets. It was one of the undergrads and the professor? grad student? Whomever it was, they had no right to be in a leadership position.

We gave them some harsh words and shook our fingers at them. I just cannot believe their behavior. It's disgusting. As field biologists, we were personally offended by them and their complete disregard for the birds. I was really bummed about this. In fact, I cried because I just don't understand how they could do that, and especially in such an esteemed research area - freaking Corcovado National Park??! AHHH! It's a mockery.

The day before, we had seen a few of the undergrads out on one of the trails looking for monkeys. Someone needs to teach these kids proper field behavior, because they were literally screaming back and forth to each (about 60 meters away) "You guys found any monkeys yet? I can't find any!" I'm going to stop right now, because I think if i keep complaining about them, I won't be able to stop...

Moving on...we ended up getting a later start since we had to babysit and take care of the mist nets. It was a 12 mile hike to the Los Patos ranger station. Hot day! But we saw a lot of new birds today: Dot-winged Antwren, White-shouldered Tanager, Golden-crowned Spadebill, White-whiskered Puffbird (my favorite! top photo), Yellow-billed Cacique, Amazon Kingfisher, Black-striped Woodcreeper, Black-throated Trogon, Masked Tityra, White-throated Shrike Tanager, White-necked Jacobin.

The first 8 miles of the hike ere relatively flat and easy, then stuff went uphill for the last 4. Lots of huge strangler figs and a good handful of river crossings. We ran into some park police with huge machine guns at one point - they were looking for poachers. I want their job.

We stopped for a break and a spider monkey found us. He was very chatty. He kept taunting us I think and making all sorts of good noises. He followed us for about 15 minutes once we started hiking again, funny stuff. Zac thought he was mad at us but I think he just wanted someone to talk to :)

This Mangrove Black Hawk was right above our heads and stayed still for a couple photos...never even flushed! I applaud him for this.

We heard a lot of curassows on the hike today, and saw a pair pretty early on in the day. Mid way through the hike, the trail got awfully sketchy. It would have been extremely easy to get lost, but we managed to stay on the right track. We finally got to the ranger station...well, actually it was the really old ranger station. We still had a couple miles to go and nothing was marked. The trail forked...with no sign? We had good luck and guessed correctly. We got to the station and there was no one else camping, which made us happy. We set up the tent and played in the river for a while before it got too dark.

Costa Rica Day 21 - Corcovado: Squirrel Monkeys and Anteaters!

We had all day to wander the area around today, since we were camping at the Sirena Station another night. We took the hiking pretty easy today but probably still got about 8 miles in. We woke up and walked over to another river crossing - this one is known for not only crocs but also bullsharks! Very nice! Alas, we saw neither. We did see a Bare-throated Tiger Heron (above). I love that picture, it's one of my favorites.

We also saw see squirrel monkeys! and spider monkeys! There was a group of about 7-8 squirrel monkeys with one spider monkey hanging out with them. They were so much fun to watch! The squirrels were awfully feisty and that one guy above barred his teeth at some of his friends. The spider on the other hand was pretty curious about us and ended up following us through the trees after we walked away. Pretty exciting stuff to get to see these guys!

When we got to our packs back at camp, we were thrilled to find out that Zac's pack had been thoroughly attacked by ants. It took about an hour to get them all out...this small fiasco could have been avoided...but...ahem. Those things hurt! After lunch, we we went out again in search of the moo-ing Great Curassow. It took a while, but we ended up seeing two of them. Wow! Pretty fantastic looking birds! I'm not going to lie, I had absolutely no idea what was making that noise until Zac told me. They have a really guttural, well, it's a moo. Crazy noises for a bird to make. These were the best shots I could get of the guy.

We saw a couple passion flowers blooming along the trail - there weren't many of them, but hot damn they were good looking! Soon after that I managed to drop the big lens (I like to just call it the 'big lens') on a fairly obvious root sticking out of the ground. Close call...those bad boys are hearty! Also noteworthy was this huge hive of some sort below. Didn't want to get too close to that, but I admire their craftwork.

Here' some sort of orb weaver (right?) and an unidentified butterfly.

It was soon time for dinner so we unenthusiastically snarfed down our corn tortillas and refrieds (vegan backpacking options were lacking in the Costa Rican grocery stores, so this was our staple for a month).

There was still some daylight left so we went for another hike and saw a few Great Tinamous, one of whom posed nicely for a photo. Other birds of the day were Chestnut-backed Antbird, Orange-billed Sparrows, Golden-napped Woodpecker, Blue-crowned Parrot, Rufus Nightjar, Rufous Piha, White-lined Tanager, among others.

Wait! I'm not done! I gotta say that the best find of the day was...a Banded Anteater! What! Yes really! This was crazy thrilling - I've always wanted to see an anteater in the wild! We thought it was a monkey at first. I guess neither of us really thought about anteaters being so arboreal. We soon realized he was actually a real live anteater and proceeded to be in awe of this fact. We watched him move extremely gracefully through the trees until it got too dark and we couldn't see him anymore. I love his ears! He's got such an adorable face! Such a great experience!

We went on a night hike a little bit later. We still had our hopes up about seeing a crocodile, so we went to the river mouth in search of one. Nope, still no luck! Oh well, there were tons and tons of paroques and one massive toad and a few frogs. We got back to the tent and proceeded to remove about 30 more ticks between the two of us. I was too excited about the anteater to sleep like a normal person :)

Costa Rica Days 19 & 20 - Corcovado: Jaguar tracks and drunk birds

Quick side note: Corcovado National Park is definitely one of the most impressive places I've ever been to, and National Geographic refers to it as 'one of the most biologically diverse places on the planet.' So, well, that's pretty impressive. We spent four days backpacking in this spectacular spot...End note.

(Feb 6) We figured it would be wise to do laundry before we went to Corcovado and stank everything up worse, so while we waited, we drank excessive amounts of coffee and packed up our stuff for the hell ride to Carate, which took more than 2 hours to go roughly 24 miles. For a while, we wondered if we were being taken to a prison camp...because this is what we rode in:

We made it to Carate, which is not really a town - it's got a couple eco-lodges and a soda (which is basically a little roadside bar/old lady's kitchen) and that's about it. But, it's beautiful! We looked for a (legal) place to camp on the beach but were a little sketched out about it all. We were about 3 miles from the national park and it was getting dark so we didn't want to hike all the way there, plus, we didn't have reservations for that night. Anyway, pretty long story so I'll shorten it. There was a jackass from Canada who owned the soda and wouldn't sell us water. He also kicked an empty can at Zac when he went back an hour later to try for more water. I was livid but figured I would not exchange words because he was way too mean and scary. And I already had a really bad feeling about this guy. He told us we could camp anywhere on the beach (again, this is a really deserted place) but I was absolutely convinced he was going to come chop us up into little pieces in the middle of the night. I really have no idea what we did, other than try to buy his freaking bottled water that was for sale, to piss him off. Maybe he just hated Americans.

Anyway, we found a pretty spot to camp but there ended up being jaguar (AWESOME) prints - one adult and two young, all over the spot we were going to put up the tent. Needless to say, we wandered a half mile down the beach to a different spot. In the process, we found a predated turtle nest (bummer), tapir (above picture) and many other tracks. The predated nest plus the psycho soda owner plus not knowing if we were camping illegally kinda got me down for a while. But, despite my legit fear, I am still happy in the below photo!

I thought it wise to put up the tent in not so obvious of a spot, so we went about 50 meters into the jungle. I love my tent, because it so beautifully camouflaged in various different landscapes. It's a Mountain Hardwear Approach, by the way, and has survived a lot of good, hardcore stuff. I was on a roll and seriously weirded out by the aforementioned soda guy, so we covered our tracks with a giant palm leaf. yes, really. We ate some corn tortillas and beans for dinner at sunset by the beach (ohh la la!). When we came back to the tent, there was a spider monkey (again, awesome!) hanging out in the branches right above the tent. This definitely upped my mood! When it got dark, there were tons of fireflies. The heat was intense that night. I love being hot and can handle the heat no matter what...but the jungle was SO thick that there was no breeze, even though we were so close to the ocean. We were beading sweat like crazy, but somehow managed to get a pretty good night's sleep. I'm pretty sure we lost a handful of pounds thanks to the sweat. We woke up to a pretty sweet sunrise below.

(Feb 6) We got an early start, note the shadows! (despite some issues I had with my contact lenses, yeee-argh!). We got to the ranger station bright and early at 6 am, loaded up on h20 and hiked the 12 miles to the Sirena station. It was a hefty 12 miles, as a lot of it was in deep sand in the sun. We had to doge the tide at times. There were hermit crabs everywhere...thousands upon thousands! We would see them eat bananas and dead crabs and an almond that I dropped. When we stopped for lunch I was mesmerized by them for some reason, and watched one carry one of my almonds for about 20 minutes. It was quite an epic journey for the little guy. I'm happy to report that he had that almond all to himself and found a fantastic little hiding spot in some driftwood...

Zac found 17 ticks on him that day, I found 4...and if you know me at all, you might know that ticks kind of make me freak out. But, I'm used to them at this point in my life, even if Zac got Relapsing Fever from oneof the little bastards while we were in Costa Rica.

Bird-wise today, some of the guys we saw were a Northern Waterthrush, Black-hooded Antshrike (above), Red-legged Honeycreeper (my favorite), Gray-headed Tanager (above), Riverside Wren, Philadelphia Vireo, Blue-capped Manequin (actually, maybe she was my favorite...top photo on this entry), Neotropical Cormorant, quite a few Mangrove Black Hawks, and a drunken Crested Guan. ha! This guy was a little tanked on some very overripe berries. He let us get within a couple feet of him because of it, and when he finally flew off, he was a little sloppy about it!

We also saw several agoudis, 6 javelinas, and tons of tapir tracks on the beach...no luck with actually seeing them however.

When we got to the first river crossing, we were relieved that it was low tide. Apparently, there are many crocodiles in this river mouth, and there have also been some human deaths because of it. It's highly advised not to cross at high tide. We made it across without any blood and no croc sightings...I REALLY wanted to see one!

We got to the Sirena Ranger Station, set up the tent and pulled ticks off ourselves for the next hour. Fun day and a great hike, but we were ready for a rest at the end of the day! This is a very tired Zac nearing the end of the day...