Apparently rain forest birds love bananas. If one puts out a clump of bananas at sunrise, the birds will fly a path to your doorstep! My “job” in the rain forest was to get up early, find the bananas (easy), and start taking pictures. The challenge was keeping my camera dry even if it was not raining. The humidity invaded all of my electronics, which was a bit of a challenge. Given the lodge staff put out bananas at sunrise, my effort was darned easy. Eventually … perhaps after 90 minutes of communing with the birds, I would meander over to an outdoor table (with a roof to protect against the rain) and have my farm breakfast. La Carolina Lodge raises or grows over 80% of the food served to guests.

Now that I am visiting the extremely hot dry forest region on the Pacific … 95F mid day with zero rain … the heat of the days is a perfect time for blogging. Thus these pics from a few days ago …

It goes w/o saying without Cornell’s Bird ID I would have been totally confused in terms of bird identification. However as this is now my fourth trip to Costa Rica I am actually learning many birds by sight and sound. Did you know the Keel-Billed Toucan’s song sounds like a frog croaking?! I now know that fact and it helped me find this kind of toucan.

Rain Forest Banana Birds

Black Cheeked Woodpecker

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Blue Gray Tanager

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Buff-Throated Saltator

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Cattle Egret (out in the nearby farm field)

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Chestnut-Headed Oropendola

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Clay Colored Thrush

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Crested Guan

 

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Crested Guan and Russet-Naped Wood Rail

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Golden Hooded Tanager

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Great Kiskadee

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Keel-Billed Toucan

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Montezuma Oropendola

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Palm Tanager

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Russet-Naped Wood Rail

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Scarlet-Rumped Tanager

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Southern Lapwing (out in the nearby farm field)

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Yellow-Throated Euphonia

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Yellow-Throated Toucans