Tuesday 27 September 2016

Highland highlights before the Caribbean

Back in San Jose on our way to the Caribbean coast and time for a look back at the last few days of ringing and birding at Madre Selva in the Highlands of Costa Rica.
Birds have been coming to our garden feeder. Flame-coloured Tanagers are the most common.


Tropical Kingbird the most unusual and never seen in the garden before in 5 years.


Clearly the best garden bird was this adult male Slaty Flowerpiercer, a retrap originally ringed by Richard a couple of years ago. See this blog from 2014 showing the same leucistic feathering


Equally sought after for its unusual bill structure was this Peg-billed Finch, not caught in the garden but in one of our standard nets adjacent to Highland dairy pasture.


This pasture edge scrub is also home to Flame-throated Warblers, one of our less common Highland Warblers.


The migrant Thrushes haven't started returning yet but the first returning Warblers have been caught in small numbers.
Black and White Warbler


and Wilson's Warblers


 We are just seeing our first young resident Catharus Thrushes, both Black-billed Nightingale-Thrushes


and Ruddy-capped Nightingale-Thrushes. The pattern of the growth bar in the tail supporting the ageing of this juvenile


We expect to catch our first migrating Thrushes within hours of arriving in Tortuguero on Tuesday.

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