Tuesday, September 20, 2011

great insect picture

 Lesly en Lydia van Kleef did send me this picture of a great insect that we saw on the Kotowa coffee farm.
Yes , it is not a bird...but it has wings!!
What is it.....an answer of Dane Wade....The insect is in a group whose common name is bush crickets. The taxonomic 'Order' is Orthoptera (within the HUGE 'Class' Insecta)- includes Grasshoppers, Crickets, etc.
Bush crickets are separated from the other Orthoptera mainly by their long/ very long antennae. They are tropical. There are MANY SPECIES of them in the tropics, almost none in cooler, temperate zones. While there are a fair # of grasshoppers and cricket species in the tropics, they are more numerous in temperate zones-- Europe, the US.
Bush crickets can be very colorful, like your photo, but the coolest ones are the ones that are so cryptic, so well camouflaged, that they can almost 'disappear' on whatever substrate they live on--- like a woody tree trunk, an epiphyte-covered treetrunk, etc.
Your photo is a female-- easy to tell that, as only the F's have that long pointed apparatus protruding out from under their abdomen, called an ovipositor. and used to insert into a substrate (the soil, a fruit, a leaf, soft wood, etc.) and lay their eggs.
There are many 100's of species of bush crickets. They provide much food for birds (and mammals, and reptiles, etc)   THANK YOU, Dan!!

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Early bird morning

Kay and I went this morning to Los Cangilones de Gualaca, curious if it is a nice birding area... it was beautiful , but not too much birds.

Lot of Flycatchers, on the road to the place, a nice American Kestrel.(picture down below)
After that we went to the hot springs , but also there it was not really birdie, but that was already around 11am
But any way it was a nice morning.
We saw at least 2 dead Snakes on the road and on my way to home, I saw this green Snake on the road ...the green vine Snake...Oxybelis fulgidus     

Unfortunately I have to say on this bird blog...The diet of this snake consists mostly of lizards and birds. Some Green Vine Snakes specialize in small hummingbirds, positioning themselves near flowers where the birds feed and striking from close distance.

Read more: Green Vine Snake Facts | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_5444582_green-vine-snake.html#ixzz1XzHRt8pa

Well that is nature....he has to eat also.

An addition about the snake from Dan Wade:
 Your Green Vine Snake is a sit-and-wait predator. Usually if a critter is cryptic, is a predator, you can assume it is of the 'sit-and-wait' strategy, rather than a actively chasing its prey. Sitting motionless in greenery, this snake makes a living, by eating whatever comes close unknowingly close enough to strike (of course, it has to qualify as 'prey', as there are critters that will eat the snake!)
And while it will eat small hummers if able, I'd guess that its diet consists mostly of anoles and other small reptiles, maybe large insects too.

Birdlist
Turkey Vulture
black Vulture
spotted Sandpiper
yellow headed Caracara
American Kestrel

pale vented Pigeon
ruddy ground Dove
white tipped Dove
rufous tailed Hummingbird
another female Hummingbird, bathing herself in wet leaves, no ID (maybe...the bronze tailed Plumeleteer)
blue crowned Motmot
black chested Jay
red crowned Woodpecker
tropical Gnatcatcher
Panama Flycatcher
tropical Kingbird
social Flycatcher
dusky capped Flycatcher
sulphur bellied Flycatcher
Northern scub-flycatcher (picture )


clay colored Thrush
common tody Flycatcher
lesser Greenlet
blue gray Tanager
great tailed Grackle
eastern Meadowlark
gray breasted Martins

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

birding instead of the dentist!

Not a bad deal, an English Mother and her daughter gave me a call this morning at around 8am, they love to go out and see some birds. I had to go to the dentist , but that one I did cancel, looking for birds with English people...always a pleasure.
For a late start(9am), it was a good birding morning! Of course I will add my fantastic pictures that I took this morning ...you will be impressed ( I am Cynical now).
turkey Vulture
torrent Tyrannulet
Bat Falcon


green Hermit
white throated mountain Gem
violet Sabrewing
red faced Spinetail

hairy Woodpecker
streak headed Woodcreeper
dark Pewee
olive striped Flycatcher

tufted Flycatcher
olive sided Flycatcher
black and white Becard
gray breasted Wood Wren
ochraceous Wren
black faced Solitair
brown caped Vireo
black cheeked Warbler
flame throated Warbler
collared Redstart
slate throated Redstart
golden browed Euphonia
silver throated Tanager
spange cheeked Tanager
Elegant Euphonia
common bush Tanager
yellow thighed Finch
yellow faced Grassquit

The whole last night it was raining, but the day was beautiful..just a nice picture of the sun through the trees (no birds in it)and we saw a land crab....

Monday, September 12, 2011

just a walk on the farm this morning

Always something to see... an American Redstart male , first one this season.
A nice roadside Hawk..sun bathing, picture above.
And a whole bunch of brown throated Parakeets, who are landing in front of me.
It's wet season and that means blue hooded Parrots on the farm and loads of Parakeets in the meadow area.
They are real, I still cannot use to it that we are surrounded by real wild Parakeets.(we live here now 13 years) I remember I saw "my" first wild Parakeets on an Island named Taquile, somewhere in lake Titicaca, Peru...in 1986, it was a great feeling and still I have that feeling.
A small movie to prove that they are real ha ha

Sunday, September 11, 2011

reading about migration birds and their connection with coffee farms!

Lately I read about migration birds and the connection with coffee farms. It's always nice to read, especially in this time of year.
I read this article of the scarlet Tanager(waiting for him) of Audubon Seattle and in that article there was even a link to our bird list! Cool!
http://shadecoffee.org/shadecoffee/Profile.aspx?birdid=508
A lot of nice stories about most of our farm birds
Picture of our coffee farm....

11/9/2011

It was not a difficult choice...or stay home  and watching television (9/11) or go to the forest and see some birds and try to practice with my camera...
It was a good morning, lovely to be alone in the forest(I brought my dog she is o.k.)
taking pictures...of birds...not easy(picture above...look for the Ochraceous Wren , ha ha ...it's on the right of the trunk), I knew that. When you are focused on taking pictures, you loose other sightings of birds, they fly around, but you want to take a picture of that bird in front of you. It was fun, but I will not do it all the time. A lot of birds around me this morning , I love September!
On this picture , above .... a collared Redstart, ja ja

Above , not so fantastic picture, but it was the Olive sided Flycatcher, I saw him also on our farm yesterday. And Greg the birder that I met on the trail today, he told me he saw him Friday 9th of September on the slope of Volcan Baru, pretty high up(above 2000 Meters)
And this is the song of the slaty backed nightingale Thrush.
All the Thrushes were singing, it was beautiful.
Small birdlist....
silvery fronted Tapaculo
stripe tailed Hummingbird
magnificent Hummingbird
scintillant Hummingbird
white throated mountain Gem
mountain Elaenia
yellowish Flycatchers
ochraceous Wren
house Wren
gray breasted wood Wren
slaty backed nightingale Thrush
ruddy capped Thrush
black faced Solitair
brown capped Vireo
Canada Warbler
elegant Euphonia
collared Redstart
slate throated Redstart
black cheeked Warbler
common bush Tanager
silver throated Tanager
yellow thighed Finch
yellow faced Grassquit
rufous collared Sparrow.





Tuesday, September 6, 2011

nice birding morning and a blackpoll Warbler!

Nice birding day  with fellow birders from Boquete in La Estrella/la India
Down below the birdlist, more migrants did arrive !


blue and white Swallow
Turkey Vulture
green Heron
northern Jacana
cattle Egret
least Grebe
pied billed Grebe
neotropic Cormorant
spotted Sandpiper
southern Lapwing
black Hawk Eagle
ruddy ground Dove
white tipped Dove
blue headed Parrot
Squirrel Cuckoo
black chested Jay
rufous tailed Hummingbird
stripe throated  Hermit
red crowned Woodpecker
golden olive Woodpecker
streak headed Woodcreeper
olivaceous Woodcreeper
....Woodcreeper
tropical Kingbird
black Phoebe
great Kiskadee
social Flycatcher
yellow bellied Elaenia
lesser Elaenia
paltry Tyrannulet
tody Flycatcher
white winged Becard
masked Tityra
rufous breasted Wren
white throated Thrush
clay colored Thrush
brown capped Vireo
tropical Gnatcatcher
red eyed Vireo(95% sure, could not see him in the eyes)
Philadelphia  Vireo
Tennessee Warber
black and white Warbler
Canada Warbler
blackpoll Warbler female!!
scarlet thighed Dacnis
tropical Parula
slate throated Redstart
golden crowned Warbler
rufous capped Warbler
silver throated Tanager
bay headed Tanager
blue gray Tanager
white winged Tanager
yellow throated brush Finch
buff throated Saltator
rufous collared Sparrow
yellow faced Grassquit
lesser Goldfinch

Sunday, September 4, 2011

two pictures taken by me this morning

This morning two gray headed Tanager were sitting in front of the bedroom.
Finally I took pictures of them!!

Saturday, September 3, 2011

a link from a fellow birder, great story...Pale Male

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1NV-j5gRho

It's all about a daring red-tailed hawk who manages to thrive in the urban world of New York City.

today on the farm ...American Redstart and gray headed Tanager on the feeder

the first American Redstart...female on the farm.
And we have already for few years the gray headed Tanager on the farm, but this year for the first time I saw them with young. And they like the bananas on the feeder since a few days.
Tried to take a picture, but they are very shy.
This is not a picture from me, found it on the internet, but I thought it gives little bit color to this post