Little Owls

For the last 2 summers I have been privy to the whereabouts of breeding little owls. Needless to say I have spent quite a few session near to their nesting hole hidden under camo netting waiting for the birds to show - either a chick coming out to view the outside world or an adult coming in.
The chicks have been amazingly indifferent to my presence but the adults have been far less confiding as a consequence my stays have been quite short. The few time I have seen the adults they were away from the nest hole.
The first year I went the chick (I only ever saw the 1) was quite advanced and able to fly even though it spent most of it's time dozing in the early morning sun. The second year I started seeing the chick (again only 1) at a much earlier age and stopped going before it reached near-adult plumage.

Adult shots.
I attended the site on several occasions hiding in amongst some trees where I could watch the breeding hole from a "safe" distance (~60 yards) and try to get a feel for where the birds liked to perch, how often they visited the nest, their line of approach etc. During these sessions absolutely nothing went near the hole but on a couple of occasions the bird found me:

Juvenile:

Getting shots of the juvenile(s) was simply a matter of sitting near the nest hole under camo netting and waiting. At times I'm sure the camouflage was overkill in that a well used footpath and park bench was right beside my "hiding place" and the chick would just sit in the sun sleeping or watching walkers/dog walkers go wandering past.

Though it did react to the camera shutter and have a good look in my direction so I switched the camera to "silent mode".

A return trip a few days later saw the bird getting a little more adventurous...……...and less sleepy - well some of the time.

It  dropped down onto a ledge just below the hole for an explore.

Another 10 days lapsed before I returned and the owl was progressing well spending a lot more time on the ledge exercising.

That was my last visit for the year.

The previous year I had started visiting when the chick(s) was quite well advanced so from the perspective of bird age these shot compliment those posted above.
For several days I placed earthworms below the nest hole in the hope of getting a bird flying down to feed and eventually my patience was rewarded.

It spotted the worms.

….moved on to the ledge to be a little closer

Swooped down, picked up a worm and returned to it's hole before I could get a shot off.

A little later it again dropped to the ground but this time it had to hop a foot or so to pick the worm up. I managed 4 shots before it returned to the hole. Luckily the piece of ground with the worms was now in the sun.

As gefore it returned to the hole to enjoy it's breakfast.

That was my last visit that year.

In all the time I spent viewing the hole but never saw more than one little owl and I never managed the adult returning to the hole with food. Perhaps next year.

Punta Leona, Costa rica (25th-31st March 2018)

I have already covered our first day at Punta Leona and our biridng "tour" with the resident bird guide. In this final post I'll cover what  I found over the course of our stay.

The Punta Leona estate is huge - it's 4 km from the accommodation to the entrance gate but much/most of the terrain is inaccessible and some that is accessible is near impossible to get around holding a camera and tripod. As a consequence places to bird are quite limited and many of those get  crowded even early in the morning.
Seen everywhere were the scarlet macaws as were great kiskadee and if you found something small flitting around chances were it was a chestnut side warbler normally in winter plumage or moult just to make id difficult. Hoffman's woodpecker was also common.

Great kiskadee

Hoffman's woodpecker

On the first morning with the guide we wandered around the area close to the reception area and down to the beach. This area is flat but a lot of it is covered with gardens and other facilities - spar, butterfly garden, maintenance work shops, swimming pool, supermarket and restaurants. The area wasn't that productive and most things you found were high in the canopy.

Behind our accommodation  was steep forested hillside and there was a short track into it that just petered out into a small open area. I wandered up here a couple of times and adopted the tactics of find somewhere in the shade and just wait for stuff to turn up. This was the most productive area I found  and I could even view some of this hillside from the seat outside our room.
Birds seen here included yellow headed caracara and broad winged hawk. A pair of rose throated becards were always present as were rufous naped-wren who were making a nest in the electricity wires.

Yellow-headed caracara

Broad-winged hawk

Rose-throated becard (female)

Streak headed woodcreeper, common xenops, social flycatcher, yellow-olive flycatcher, Baltimore oriole, red-legged honey creeper, buff throated saltator, and squirrel cuckoo were also seen in this area.

Squirrel cuckoo

Red-legged honeycreeper (female)

Plain xenops

Streak-headed treecreeper

Baltimore oriole

Buff-throated saltator

Social flycatcher

There was another track off the main road into the estate that looped above the maintenance workshops. I wandered this a couple of times but it wasn't very productive though it has to be said I never walked this track early morning, only in the afternoon when it was still hot.  Seen here were fiery billed aracari, streaked flycatcher, brown jay, great crested flycatcher, rose throated becard, golden hooded tanager

Fiery Billed aracari

Brown jay

Rose-throated becard

Birding from the main road was likewise not very productive in part due the near constant stream of traffic coming in and out of the estate and the large number of runners and walkers even at dawn. Seen whilst dodging the traffic were

Streaked flycatcher

Rose-breasted grosbeak

Chestnut-backed antbird

Red-billed pigeon

Just off the entrance road there were some marked hiking trails into the forest. I did try these out one morning but the terrain was so steep and difficult to walk (especially with a tripod) that I gave up after 100 yards or so.
Finally there was the beach area. I never did this early morning and at any other time it was very busy so I probably didn't get the best out of this area. It did however provide great views/photographs of Hoffman's woodpecker and scarlet macaw and I also saw palm tanager and inca dove. Pelicans and frigate birds could be seen out to sea but none came into the bay.

That's it. It was a great trip though I would do several things differently if I had the time again. What I wouldn't change was our time in the mountains with Miriam's and Savegra Lodge being fantastic as was the Tarcoles river trip. Now all I have to do is convince my wife we should go back!

Carara national Park

We had 2  short trips to Carara. They were short because it was so hot. We had expected hot and humid but our stay on the Pacific coast was really hot - midday temps up to 37 and never below 35C. Indeed on the day of our Tarcoles river boat trip it was 31C at 8.30am.

Since we were more interested in photographing what we saw rather than accumulating a lot of ticks we did not use a guide; our thinking being if it was close enough to photograph then we should be able to see it. Small things flitting about the canopy were of little interest. The other factor was the cost. What we couldn't do was identify birds by call and try to whistle or tape lure them closer which is what quite a few guides seem to do. We will never know whether the cost would have been justified.

For our first trip we went along the Meandrica trail (near the river) and within 10 yards of entering the forest we found a pair of white whiskered puff birds only a few yards off the track.

female

Male

So after 2 minutes I thought Carara was wonderful but after that thing got very slow. We did hear some manakins snapping but as we tried to locate them the calling faded then stopped completely. I also spotted a royal flycatcher - I'd  seen the bird moving through the forest about 20 yards away and had no idea what it was (and no chance of a photograph) when it raised it's crest - no mistaking that.
The orange billed sparrow was easy to id as was the black hooded antshrike (female) because we'd seen both of these earlier in the holiday. A chestnut backed antbird was a welcome addition to out list however.

female black-hooded antshrike

Chestnut-backed antbird (male)

Later on we found another pair of puffbirds, a white tipped dove and a male black hooded antshrike but that was it for the camera.

Male black-hooded antshrike

The wet area often discussed in write ups of this trail was dry and completely covered with 5-6ft high reeds. We saw no one else on this trail though a group of capuchins took exception to our presence and were very aggressive.

For our second trip we went along the main trail at park entrance and things got off to a lively start with a steely vented hummingbird by the car park and as soon as we started along the trail it was clear there were a lot more birds here. Many were high up and/or invisible but it was nice to see movement and hear bird song - something lacking for much of the Meandrica trail. To start we saw birds we'd already logged - orange billed sparrow and black hooded antshike (at least 2).

Steely-vented hummingbird

Black-hooded antshrike

Orange-billed sparrow

But a stop overlooking a stream gave us Northern waterthrush, grey-chested dove and yellow-olive flycatcher.

yellow-olive flycatcher

Grey chested dove

Moving on we found streak headed woodcreeper, several plain xenops and blue-back grosbeak.

Blue-black grosbeak

Plain xenops

Some rustling in the leaf litter had us peering into the gloom for several minutes before we spotted a thrush size bird almost completely immersed in the leaf litter. Eventually it came into view then very kindly hopped up onto a twig to consume it's catch:

Buff-throated foliage-gleaner

On the return leg we picked up a rufous winged woodpecker then had a pair of chestnut-backed antbirds hopping around in front of us coming within 10 yards.

Rufous winged woodpecker

Chestnut-backed antbird. (Top - male, bottom - female)

As the forest thinned we picked up streaked flycatcher and red-legged honeycreeper.

The final bird of the session was a gartered trogon again in the car park.

Not a huge list but quite a few flitters went unidentified and a number of chestnut-sided warblers were seen but not photographed.

All I can say is forest birding is difficult and when a bird is found the light conditions are truly appalling. To my mind a flash is essential. To illustrate this point here's a picture of the puffbird we saw on the Meandrica trail but taken using natural light - all I had was 1/60th sec at ISO 8000!!!!!.

Just about all you can say about this picture is you can see it's a puffbird and bin it.