Hummingbirds in the hand and hovering around

Hummingbirds are one of the main focuses and quite frankly one of the reasons finca pura vida is so special.  We have eleven species that occur around the area and ten that visit our feeder array on a daily basis. For the last four years we’ve been catching hummingbirds with mist nets and customized traps. We’ve been fortunate enough to band hundreds of birds at this point, so the main goal now is to catch recaptures and answer some of our research questions.  I thought I would just show a few photos of hummingbirds and share a few quick notes about what we’ve seen so far this year. I promise to have a fun more exploratory literary post soon.

Green-breasted Mango (Anthracothorax prevostii) 

Green-breasted Mango (Anthracothorax prevostii) 

Female Blue-throated Sapphire (Hylocharis eliciae)

 Cinnamon Hummingbird (Amazilia rutila)

So far we’re already seeing some great recaptures, we recaptured a Green-breasted Mango and a Steely-vented Hummingbird. Both species are residents that feed year round at the finca, these captures lead to the greater understanding of site fidelity amongst resident species. Most resident species move around during the year, corresponding with different flowering trees and the climate. It’s interesting to note that species of the dry forests can grow accustomed to a certain area outside the breeding season as their main form of food resource.

Steely-vented Hummingbird (Amazilia saucerottei)

Green-breasted Mango (Anthracothorax prevostii) recapture

The other great capture we’ve had so far is the adult male Ruby-throated Hummingbird. This is the only North American migrant we have on Nicoya, the small spunky migrant joins the cast of the much larger resident species here. These small birds join the mix of aggressive hummingbirds battling it out to gain resources during this time of year. This individual we banded last year, flew back to North America, hopefully successfully breed, than flew all the way back to Costa Rica.  There’s something magical about the thought of a bird weighing less than a penny making the thousand-mile journey. I’ve flown over just a small portion of Costa Rica before, looking down it’s like an ocean of green, I can’t imagine what it must look like to these small birds. Somehow though it founds it’s way back to our small patch of green in the mosaic and once again joins the scarp battle for food over the next few months.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris)

Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris)

Last are a few photos illustrating Hummingbirds in isolated motions, giving a fileting glimpse into the beauty of their in flight aerobatics. When frozen like this they almost dance in the air, slowly moving thorough the air to their final destination a flower in this instance. You can definitely expect to see more hummingbirds posts in the future, their too fascinating not to share.

Plain-capped Starthroat (Heliomaster constantii)

Green-breasted Mango (Anthracothorax prevostii) 

Green-breasted Mango (Anthracothorax prevostii), Rufous-tailed Hummingbird (Amazilia tzacatl), and Steely-vented Hummingbird (Amazilia saucerottei)

Back at it.

I left Panama in mid April this year returning to Connecticut, for a fruitful season of naturalist work in New England. I’m back on the Nicoya peninsula of Costa Rica, and I can tell you for certain as always many interesting stories will unfold over the ensuing weeks. Will be working again on a number of research projects, mostly involving birds, but the naturalist inside me will keep diligently curious about many taxa across the spectrum. There will be plenty of bats, snakes, reptiles, insects, spiders, a few amphibians  (due to the habitat), and many more things to talk about.  I’m going to try to give a valiant effort in updating this much more frequently over this season.  

The Sunset over the dry forest habitat of Nicoya

I thought I would talk a little about the first couple of days; it’s surprising that even though this is the fifth year of traveling here and doing research, I haven’t often documented or talked about it. 

The port at Puntarenas

We took the five hour flight from Newark to San Jose, than the next part always goes much the same every year. You feel like you’re shot out of a canon, we have to make decisions quickly about what time it is and when we’d like to make the ferry. To get over to the Nicoya Peninsula you have to take a ferry from the port at Puntarenas to Nicoya. It’s a mad dash though to get to the few times the ferry departs from the port.  We didn’t make the 2:00 ferry to the port we wanted to get to, but instead had to take the 2:30 ferry to a port further away from the Finca. 

Crossing over the Gulf of Nicoya

We managed to arrive at the Finca at around 6:00 which is better than our average return time, so we managed to make pretty good time this year.The first night was a little on the anti-climatic side usually were chomping at the bit to get out and do some exploring, but this year we both decided we’d wait till the following morning.  It had been a long day and I quickly slipped away to my sleep. The one things you can guarantee there is always some form of natural alarm that will wake you up early in the tropics, over the years it’s been the White-faced Capuchin troop running on the metal roof making as much noise as possible, a dueling troops of Howler Monkeys letting of boisterous alarm calls, or this year the sounds of over a hundred hummingbirds darting in and out of the 15 feeders we have set up in the gazebo. If you never heard what quite literally a riot of food frenzy of Hummingbirds sounds like, I can tell you for sure it’s surprisingly quite loud.  But there is nothing one can enjoy more about being in the tropics than watching over nine species have aerial battles, that rival famous fighter pilot stand offs.

A new member to the Fincas Mantled Howler Monkey troop.

After enjoying a cup of coffee we took to the trails to make some net lanes and start setting up some nets that we will eventually train the new cast on interns on. 

It was a slow morning with only two species captures, were currently in a heat wave that seems to be affecting the amount of movement species are exerting currently. 

The two species caught though are somewhat telling of the avifauna of Nicoya though.  First were a beautiful Blue-crowned Motmot (Momotus momota) and the other the very common Long-tailed Manakin (Chiroxiphia linearis), if there was a bird species that symbolizes the avifauna of Nicoya it would be this species for me. It’s been over the years are most commonly caught species, and it’s song bouncing around in the forests all over the peninsula, are always a wonderful reminder of where I am.  

Blue-crowned Motmot (Momotus momota)

Long-tailed Manakin (Chiroxiphia linearis) 

I’m going to stop here and talk more tomorrow about our day in the mangroves and what that work this year is going to look like. It’s muddy, at times tedious, but there is a particular sense of excitement, when you’re working while listening to the chatter of a critically endangered hummingbird.