Catchy tune, right!? Well I found out the the Costanera Reserve has wetlands, marshes, woods and grasslands. And that means BIRDS! Lots of them.
The alarm rang at 6:30 and it felt to me like a punch to the face. Conversion time: 6:30-4hours time difference + 1 hour for being here one day and starting to acclimate= 3:30AM, no wonder that we felt miserable.
Off to Costarena with Andres, our guide. We became energized by the beautiful weather and our first birds were all ducks! And even the Common Gallinule is a different species with the same name as our Orange County one. Anyway, we had Silver Teal, Tiger Heron, Rosy-billed Pochard and Harris Hawk at short range.
And then we entered the reserve proper and had a lovely Sayaca Tanager attacking its image in the window of a shack. Then one of my favorite photos of the day, the glittering-bellied Emerald Hummingbird. There were many more to come, a bird with a call of: ” glad to meet you!” even a beaver-like creature and a large lizard, the size of an alligator that will be in the next horror movie made. All told, we observed 82 species, with at least half of those with reasonable images taken and our morning turned out to be a success! Was that a portent of things to come? Stay tuned for that report!
