Costa Rica part 1 - La Sabana Park

We are at the start of a three week trip around Costa Rica. Yesterday was a trip around the town seeing the sights so no real birding. Today was our first trip to do any proper wildlife spotting.
San Jose is a funny old town - very busy and bustling but a bit shabby. Most people use it as an overnight stop when heading out to the jungle, We added on an extra day as we had a bit more time so with jet-lag still getting us up early we headed off on a short walk to La Sabana park. This is the main municipal park of San Jose and is split between sports and picnic areas. By London standards it is pretty small. There is also a lake and a few wooded areas which apparently can hold some decent wildlife.
We got to the park about 8 with the sun starting to heat up the morning, out of a clear blue sky. There were lots of people already using the park for jogging and keep-fit. There were areas though which looked decent for birds.

The totally ubiquitous bird of here, and I suspect everywhere in CR, is the great-tailed grackle. This crow-like bird has a real attitude and there must have been many dozens if not a hundred or more strutting around in the park.

With many trees around it was hardly surprising that virtually the first birds we saw were woodpeckers. We actually saw two different sorts. The first was the smaller Hoffmann's, a classic "ladder-backed" bird.

Spring was in the air and there was much chasing around between birds of both sexes as territories and mating rights were established.
The second woodpecker we saw on a second afternoon visit. This is the much larger lineated woodpecker. It was vigorously excavating a hole in a dead tree, presumably as a nest chamber for later on. If so it should give some great views of the young being fed in a couple of months time.

Its breast should be white, so all this excavation was making it in sore need of a bath.
One of the other birds which were very much in evidence were the parakeets. We saw two different sorts, squeaking and flying around, mainly in the tops of the trees. The commonest was the crimson-fronted parakeet.

They are small to medium-sized parrots, with a bold crimson patch on their foreheads, a red epaulette-stripe on their shoulder and a long tail.
The second species was the orange-chinned parakeet.

They are much smaller, plainer, with an ivory-coloured beak, a large orbital ring and an orange spot under their lower mandible, which can be quite hard to spot.
Elsewhere in the wooded area, rufous-naped wrens were very much in evidence.

They are much larger than our wrens, probably chaffinch-sized birds, with a vey piratical-look to their heads. As I mentioned before, Spring is clearly in the air as one pair were demonstrating.

That crest in absolutely amazing.
There were a number of other birds we saw including red-billed pigeon,

white-winged dove,

Baltimore oriole, both male and female,

blue-grey tanager, which was a very common sight,

and the very common greater kiskadee.

There were a few smaller birds like this yellow warbler

and yellow-green vireo

but otherwise there weren't a lot of warblers and the like.
As well as a wooded area, there was a small lake, partially dried up and fringed with water hyacinth. It didn't look too inviting but there were about 50 black-bellied whistling ducks and a few pairs of Muscovy ducks paddling around on it.

On the edges of the lake a pair each of spotted sandpipers and killdeer were searching out invertebrates  in the mud. One of the killdeer had a very narrow escape after three grackles chased it round the lake, presumably, bearing in mind their persistence, with the idea of having it for tea!

There were three species of herons, one each of great-blue heron,

great white egret and green heron. The green heron showed really well and displayed its curious throat.

It folds its gullet down into its neck so it can wind its neck on. When it yawns though this peculiar protuberance appears out its mouth!
An osprey fly had a fly round the lake twice searching out any easy prey. It never dived whilst we were there though.

Near the shore this rufous-collared sparrow, a bird we had shared breakfast with in our hotel dining room, was searching the grass for food.

Finally, I can't fail to mention the only mammal we saw, the variegated squirrel

They are a bit larger than out grey squirrels but have lovely multi-coloured coat. This can be, hence their name, quite variable in colour. They were real opportunists, trying on  one occasion to solicit food from one of the vendors setting up shop to sell to the people in the park.

Add onto this list both black and turkey vulture, tropical kingbird, clay-coloured thrush and a few more and we got to 33 species by the end of the day. Not a bad haul for a small city-centre park. Tomorrow though we are off to Tortugeuro on the coast where we should see some really spectacular birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects. Early start but should be well worth it.

A whole heap of it!

Wagtails are difficult. Yellow wagtails are especially difficult. There are numerous races, sub-species, forms and colour variants which make a simple task much harder. For a start, our pied wagtail (Motacilla alba alba) is not actually the nominate species, which is the white wagtail (Motacilla alba) of mainland Europe.

This smart chap is a race even though we think of it as our species! The yellow wagtail complex is totally mind-blowing. As per pied wagtails, our yellow wagtail (Motacilla flava flavissima) is a race of the nominate European species (Motacilla flava). Then you add on numerous colour variations like blue-headed, grey-headed, Channel, black-headed and ashy-headed. All of these are just races though and not pure species.
You then add into the mix another entire species - the Eastern yellow wagtail (Motacilla tschutschensis). Thus was previously another sub-species of our yellow wagtail but is now upgraded to full species. It is basically Asian but also drifts across to Alaska. Then to complete the complexity, as for our Western yellow wagtail, it has numerous races including the Alaskan or blue-headed wagtail (Motacilla tschutschensis  tschutschensis).
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that one of them has taken up residence in Norfolk. They are very rare over here, although some of this may be that they are overlooked. I saw my first and only one of the presumed nominate species in Suffolk last year. This Alaskan bird would be new and could be a potential armchair tick in the future so was the ideal first stop on a swing through Norfolk with Judith.
The site was north of Sedgeford at an attractively described dung-heap! Yellow wagtails do like these as they attract lots if insects. We got there just after dawn though it could hardly be described as light, with heavy cloud cover. A quick coffee and I scanned the dung-heap but nothing was showing. Three more birders turned up and after 10 minutes a potential candidate was spotted but it was flushed and flew off!. A nervous 5 minute wait and finally it popped up on top of the pile of, well, you know what!

It was  very smart bird, more like a grey wagtail than a pure yellow one. Clearly different to the Suffolk bird and seemingly pretty happy with its breakfast. It only stayed a few minutes before flying off so we packed up and headed off elsewhere as half a dozen other cars turned up.
It was one of those days more about getting the year list up than stopping for photos, which wasn't helped by the dull-grey skies. One highlight was the ever-present flocks of ping-footed geese in the fields and the skies.

Titchwell delivered on most of the expected waders and ducks though we dipped on a sleeping woodcock by 20 minutes. By the time we got to where it was, it wasn't there anymore. This did become a theme of the day! Otherwise spotted redshanks were a good tick.
Next was Holkham and the marsh for the overwintering shore larks. Two blokes in the car park had seen them and said they were showing well. We got to the roped-off area and quickly found the flock of snow buntings, mobile over a wide area of the marsh and beach.

Try as we could though there was no sign of the shore larks. Two promises of easy-to-find birds and both gone AWOL. The sea was heaving with birds though, especially a large flock of scoters, numbering well over a thousand. Tricky but I did find a few of their rarer velvet cousins amongst them, identified most easily in flight by a white wing-bar, as per one in the photo below.

With a bit of imagination you can even see the tear-drop mark behind its eye!!

Final stop was at Wells for the long-staying rough-legged buzzard. This one was easy, sitting in a bush near the quay.

Would have been nice to see it fly but the afternoon was getting on and two guys at the buzzard said a black redstart was showing in Wells itself by the chandlery building. I think you can guess what happened. Three from three with people telling us a bird was there and in each case it had cleared off. Next time I'm not going to ask anyone if anything is around as it clearly puts a jinx on things. There were a few turnstones eating chips by the quayside as a compensation.

Not a bad day overall. 28 new birds for the year list including the two rarest targets for the day. I'll still be struggling to get to the 160 mark I had by the end of January last year but it's a good start.

Back for another bite

Before Xmas a black-throated thrush dropped into Whipsnade zoo. It attracted many hundreds of admirers and generated a nice income stream for the zoo from all the entrance fees - including ours!! It hung on and on, feasting on the cotoneaster bush by the childrens' Hullabazoo area, past Boxing day and into the New Year. Cue not a new stream of admirers but the same people now coming back to get it onto their 2020 list! It is estimated that by now the bird could have generated over £40,000 in revenue to the zoo.
I finally cracked today and set off for a repeat pilgrimage to Whipsnade. I got there at 9.50 just before it opened and joined the queue of mixed twitchers and grandchildren on a day out! I parked up and headed off on the short walk to the favoured area, where 10 people were already pointing 'scopes and cameras at the tree. Early doors though and the only sign of life was a lone mara snootily observing us from under the tree.

I was deep in conversation with a fellow twitcher, who turned out to be a zoo keeper from the 70's and 80's, when 4 people came and joined us. The bird had turned up in a neighbouring tree and was studying its potential breakfast.

It posed nicely for 2 or 3 minutes allowing everyone to get a good look at before it flew the 5 yards to the berry-laden tree. Well, to be precise the tree was berry-laden but was getting more depleted every day as it munched its way through them.

For 5 minutes it was blown around in the strong wind, heartily tucking into the berries. It would pluck one, position it in its beak, then throw back its head and swallow it.

Either it became full or the few children around spooked it and it flew off, disappearing for 20 minute or so. Then, as before, it reappeared in the nearby bush before returning for a mid-morning snack.

With it settled in again I decided to leave and go after two more year ticks relatively nearby. First was a great-grey shrike at Brogborough lakes, some 20 miles away. The location had been described to me by my zookeeper friend and that it could be quite distant. He wasn't wrong. The bird was in a hedge I guess half a mile away!!!!

Its on top of the hedge to the right of the telegraph pole - trust me!! I didn't want to go chasing it across muddy fields so I left for my third target. This was a ring-necked duck at Great Barford. These are becoming relatively common if not numerous in the UK now, being more readily found in the USA.
After a bit of confusion I found where it was lurking, a small gravel pit across a muddy sheep field. It was associating with the resident tufted ducks with whom it seemed on quite friendly terms.

Confusingly they don't have any obvious ring on their necks but do have a very pleasingly marked bill and a pointy head. I followed it round the lake for an hour or so but the whole flock were quite wary and swam off if either myself or any of the other birders got too close to them.
With the skies starting to darken and rain promised I headed back to the car. Three good year ticks, especially the thrush. One week into the new year and I'm up to 69. Not bad and a trip to Norfolk should get that up to 100. I would say a lifer would be a nice start to the New Year but I've already got one - an armchair tick of Hudsonian whimbrel. This was a full species, then became a sub-species but is apparently a full species again. So, I can tick it again!!!