When I tell my non-birding friends that we saw quite a few owls in Costa Rica, many of them are surprised.  The common perception is that owls are indeed woodland creatures, but that’s “normal” woods — not, you know, the “jungle.”  I suspect this monolithic concept of owls — where “owl” pretty much equals “great horned owl” — arises in part from our being exposed from early on to things like halloween images of owls perched in leafless trees over tombstones, defining owls glibly as creatures not only of the night, but of deciduous woodland.  For many, it even takes some getting used to think of owls as desert creatures, living in and on saguaros, and eating scorpions and other Sonoran fare.

So the concept of tropical owls takes many people by surprise.  Of course, owls are at home in rain forests as much as woodlands and wetlands and tundra.  Just not the same owls in all of those places, for the most part.  There are in fact many species of tropical owls in central America, some endemic to Costa Rica, others widespread in tropical habitats from Mexico to South America.

One of the latter is the aptly named Black and white owl (Ciccaba nigrolineata).  They are birds of moist forests.  They also can be found in urban and suburban habitats within that range, much the way Great horned owls successfully exist in proximity to human settlements.

<< Black and white owl scratching its itchy face (digiscoped by C.Gómez)

This Black-and-white owl was roosting in the central city park in the town of Orotina CR, high in a tree it was sharing with a sloth, spending the middle of the day preening itself and scratching its face with its strong-toed yellow foot. It could only be seen by standing directly below its branch and looking straight upward.

From an owl’s viewpoint, a city park is a good place to hunt large insects, like cockroaches, and small mammals, like mice and bats.  From a human point of view, it was humorous to be enjoying such an excellent owl in such an urban setting: we were surrounded by ice-cream vendors, mothers strolling their babies, pan-handlers, too-cool teenagers eyeing each other, and romping, boisterous children, as we craned upward in broad daylight at an owl who seemed to care nothing for all the traffic noise and people far below it. The owl’s primary concern seemed to be that its face itched. As it scratched like a cat, rapidly kicking at its facial disc with a talon or two, bits of down fluff, owl dander, and even a contour feather drifted down unnoticed onto the activity and bustle in the park below.

Like most enthusiasts, birders can get excited about seemingly unexciting things. As proof, first there was the Maroon-chested ground-dove, a seriously exciting species that most of my non-birding friends think looks like a “boring” Mourning dove, but was easily one of the most thrilling sightings of the entire Costa Rica trip, which was full of thrilling sightings. Now, here is the strange, statuesque potoo, a bird so fascinating it can’t be distinguished from a broken branch. I posted yesterday on the Great potoo (Nyctibius grandis), but can’t resist adding more today, including another photo of the same bird.

<< Great potoo at La Selva OTS (digiscoped by C.Gómez)

I assure you, this is a different photo — look, the bird’s head has turned a skosh farther to its left, revealing BOTH slitted, bulbous eyes. The action of turning its head so slowly as to be nearly imperceptible is pure Potoo, and it was the most exciting thing the bird “did” while we watched it — in fact, it was the only thing it “did” other than hold perfectly still — thrilling us to the core (for another account of how even seasoned birders lose their cool seeing potoos — I would have sacrificed a finger to see it scratch its face with its foot!– click here). Since this potoo was safely perched high up in the canopy, we were lucky to see it in a fluff-feathered, neutral roosting pose, rather than the usual sleeked-down, beak-pointing alarm pose in which these birds are most often detected.

Those eye slits are part of what makes potoos cool. Each lid has three tiny notch-like folds in it — a so-called “magic eye” — enabling the Potoo to see with its lids shut. Most photos you can find of potoos show them in their diurnal cryptic perching pose, eyes closed. Open, their eyes are owl-like and, in most species, bright yellow. Here’s a link to photographer Michael Fairchild’s site, showing a potoo in mid-blink, with partially open eyes. You can clearly see the notches in the lid-skin: one near each corner, and one over the pupil.

Here’s another exciting Potoo fact, if you can stand it. Their cousins the nightjars have specialized whisker-like feathers at the corner of their mouths called rictal bristles, thought to be used to help catch or detect prey. Not Potoos — they have loral bristles instead; specialized feathers between their nares (nostrils) and eyes, at the base of their bills, like flycatchers and some wood warblers. Pretty amazing, right? Right?

That’s almost all there is to say, except: here’s a picture of one, trying its best to look like a tree trunk, and doing an expert job of it:

I’ve always longed to see a Potoo, and when we got to Finca La Selva OTS (known to most North American birders as La Selva Research Station) in Costa Rica, I was excited to hear that the La Selva researchers and guides (Joel was ours) had been seeing a Great potoo around recently. Sure enough, they re-found it, napping and waiting for night to fall so it could start its day.

>> Photo of Great potoo (Nyctibius grandis), at La Selva OTS (thanks to Charlie Gómez for digiscoping with my camera through his scope)

It was roosting high overhead against a light gap in the foliage, but we were able to get a pretty clear view of the bird through scopes, and we filled our eyes (and cameras) with the glorious obfuscation that is what Potoos are all about.

I admit that part of my fondness for this bird is on account of its name, Potoo, but even without the humorous handle, it would be an excellent organism: look at that huge coin-purselike gap of a mouth — it’s capable of opening all the way to behind the bird’s eye. It’s mostly gape — the soft-skinned corners of a bird’s mouth that hinge the upper and lower mandibles of the bill, and it’s unique among its nightjar relatives (whipoorwills, frogmouths, and allies) in having a toothlike projection on either side of the tiny beak. The Potoo’s large mouth is for catching flying insects in mid-flight, at night. Potoos typically sally forth off their perches in the dark, nimbly for their odd shape, to catch and swallow insects, returning to a perch to await the next fly-by snack. This bird’s eyes are closed for sleep/camouflage (a branch with eyes is a dead giveaway), but even still you can see they’re big, like an owl’s. So big there’s not much room for a brain, which is purportedly the same size as a hummingbird’s, a much smaller bird.

There are seven species of potoo, all native to Central and South America. Everything about the genus is distinctive — click here to hear a recording of its “song”, a loud, rough, croak-like call (I recommend the second one in the top row of samples). On the same page are excellent photos, which give a good idea of this bird’s strategy of sleeking its feathers, sticking its beak up and holding stock still in order to look as much like a broken branch as possible.

Yes, you guessed it, this is not a photo from the recent Costa Rica trip. I thought a frosty retreat from the steamy tropics was in order, and decided to insert this flashback of a favorite photo and sighting from a 2004 trip to the Antarctica Peninsula: a Gentoo penguin parent about to feed its chick. This is the bill-tapping action that encourages each bird to open wide to complete the transfer of semi-digested krill from the adult to the chick.

Enjoy!

(I didn’t have a weblog back then, so periodically I post flashbacks from this trip and a later Galápagos adventure, which were both fabulous voyages with family.)

…when you were in Costa Rica?  Yes.

Did you get a photo of a Resplendent quetzal?  No.

And was the Quetzal resplendent?  Yes.

Resplendent quetzales (Pharomachrus cocinno) are glimmering emerald birds who inhabit the dense, wet montane and cloud forests of parts of Central America. The males have splendid iridescent fringed tail plumes which trail extravagantly behind them, inviting stares and admiration from both female quetzales and birders, and challenging artists with inadequate pages.  During my recent visit to Costa Rica, several quetzales crossed our path, looking down on us from a secure height, feeding, drying wet feathers, or just loafing.  One adult male bird appeared suddenly overhead, so silently we almost missed him, while we were admiring hordes of busy hummers at feeders near Monteverde.  As with hummingbirds, the exact shade of a quetzal’s plumage depends on light and angle, and can look emerald, azure, glinting with gold, or simply black.  I’ve never seen a photo do the colors justice, let alone an unsubtle computer-graphic image like my effort (although it improves with enlargement, click on image to embiggen).

Throughout their range from southern Mexico to Panama, quetzales are endangered, mainly due to habitat loss.  They are frugivores, and favor the fruits of trees such as the aguacatillo, which has a sort of miniature avocado-like fruit.  Quetzales are cavity nesters, laying two eggs in old woodpecker holes fairly high in the canopy, and males and females share nesting duties.  During the day, nests can be located by the trailing tail plumes of el macho hanging out of the nest hole.  A curious feature of Quetzales is that, unlike most birds, their toes are arranged two forward, and two back.

Queztals or Quetzales?  Either is a correct plural; the first is standard in English, the second in Spanish.

The name quetzal (usually pronounced KETzul in english and ketSALL en español) is reportedly a word from the Nahuatl language, and refers to the spendors of the birds’ tails.  It’s likely associated at least etymologically with the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent.

Click here for an excellent photo essay on Resplendent quetzales by T.Beth Kinsey of Firefly Forest.

Living in Arizona there’s no room for complaint about the quantity and loveliness of the hummers which visit our yard feeders. In the Phoenix area we have Costa’s and Anna’s year round, Black-chinned in summer, with Broad-tailed and Rufous making migratory appearances. I’ve seen a brilliant Broad-billed just two miles from here at the Desert Botanical Garden, so it’s a potential yard bird, as well. Further southeast in the state, hummer numbers swell to around 17 species — by contrast much of the U.S. hosts only one species, the Ruby-throated.

So only a truly spectacular hummer turn-out would impress a southwestern observer. Without doubt, Costa Rica provided that. During a thirteen-day trip, in various habitats and elevations, we saw about 34 species of hummers. Most I couldn’t capture in pixels: with a zoom-impaired camera, the best chance I have for snagging hummingbirds in photos is at feeders. These three posed obligingly on and around the feeders of Savegre Mountain Lodge.

<< Green violet-ear (Colibri thalassinus). These were quite common, and quite beguiling. A bit crabby, too: when another hummer got too near, those violet-ear patches would flare outward. Very threatening; we quailed at the sight. This bird has new feathers molting in on its forehead, visible as tiny white quills, still wrapped in whitish keratin like shoe-lace ends to facilitate outward growth.

>> Right: male Volcano hummingbird (Selasphorus flammula). These little toughies are related to our norte americaño Selasphori like Allen’s, Rufous, and Broad-tailed, and are just as glittery green-gold-bronze. This Cordillera de Talamanca subspecies has a plummy sheen in its gorget, slightly visible in this photo.

And lastly, below is a female White-throated mountain gem (Lampornis castaneoventris) feeding at an aloe, or perhaps a Kniphofia, flower. Her mate (not shown) has a spotless white throat and an azure forehead, but the female is marked with a handsome rusty underside, the “chestnut-belly” of its species name, castaneoventris.

(All photos A.Shock)

Here are some things you need to watch birds in Costa Rica, presented in no particular order:

A pack or bag with a waterproof stuff sack inside (I used a Sea to Summit drysack, lightweight, relatively durable, quite waterproof).  Trust me, the waterproof part will make your camera, checklist or notebook, and cookies happy.

Waterproof binoculars.  These will come in handy because you’ll most likely encounter rain, and maybe a tippy canoe (as on an earlier trip to Belize).  Also sunscreen, because it doesn’t always rain.

Cookies: I recommend chiky (above), a tasty chocolate-covered bickie readily procured from quickie-mart type establishments.  Crunchy, chocolaty, affordable, and eminently share-able.  Everyone loves a chiky!  Also recommended, jalapeño-flavored plantain chips.

Field guides for birds, plants, arthropods, whatever your interests are.  I went with Garrigues and Dean for the birds (above), as it’s more portable than the venerable and learned Stiles and Skutch, which has more info in it.  Your call, your back.

Notebook: Rite-in-the-Rain or Moleskine (above, green), again, your choice; both are tough enough to withstand moisture, repeated opening and closing and rapid shoving into velcro-closure pockets as new birds suddenly appear.  And, again, I recommend a waterproof writing tool.  I used a Faber-castell Pitt artist’s pen, color Sanguine, also good for sketching.

Umbrella.  Good for optics, and does not produce excessive sweat like encasing yourself in a plastic poncho. Take special care while birding in groups to not poke each others’ eyes out with spokes, especially in the heat of the moment when the Silvery-fronted tapaculo is singing in the drippy undergrowth at your feet.  (If you’re going with a tour, make sure umbrellas are approved by your birding leader/company).

A comfy, easy-to-see-out-of bus to get you around (left).  Air conditioning is a plus. In the bus: a cooler full of drinking water (right).

Also in the bus: People Who Know What They’re Doing.  Our leader and driver were Borderland Tours’/Costa Rica Expeditions’ Charlie Gómez and Niño Morales (below), who can both readily find a bird by sight or sound and see to it that everyone in the group gets their eyes (or at least one eye) on it.

With the assistance of these experts and items, you’re ready to look for a bird.

Here’s one now.  And it’s a good one — Charlie and Niño are exhibiting excitement.  “Just” a Mourning dove, you say?  Why, no!  It’s a female Maroon-chested ground dove (Claravis mondetoura).  Take a close look with those waterproof binoculars, you may not see this one again (digiscoping by Charlie Gómez):

(All still photos A.Shock)

To say that pygmy owls are sparrow-like isn’t entirely true.  But it’s almost true.

To start with, there’s their size: they are Very Very Small (the technical term).  Almost sparrow-sized.  Perched in a conifer, they look like a tiny pinecone. Also, like sparrows, they’re largely diurnal, and can frequently be found glaring down from a high branch in daylight hours.

Ferruginous pygmy owl, San José CR.  (photo A.Shock) >>

Then there’s their fierce, predatory nature.

OK, that’s not like a sparrow at all, unless you’re a seed.

But then, there’s their population density: they’re almost as numerous as sparrows.  Of course this is hyperbole too, but, for a predator, whose numbers are usually limited, they are fairly numerous.  In a walled garden of our hotel in San José, Costa Rica, we encountered (heard or seen) at least three if not more Ferruginous pygmy owls, simultaneously responding to their own staccato calls, recorded and played back to them. (By contrast, in Arizona, Ferruginous pygmy owls reach their maximum northward range in the southern part of the state; they’re not terribly numerous.  In fact, the Cactus ferruginous pygmy owl is endangered in the state)

<< Here’s another pygmy owl in Costa Rica, making its repetitive “poop” call, at the rate of about 3 per second, each note accompanied by a slight lift of its tail, showing the whole-body effort that goes into making a noise that’s pretty loud coming from such a small entity. (Photo A.Shock)

Costa Rica is especially well-supplied with pygmy owl species: Ferruginous, Costa Rican (endemic to the country), and Central American pygmy owl all make their homes there, varying slightly in appearance and voice, but not overlapping much in range.

[This is a Spot the Bird, although it’s less of a quiz than a photo series. All photos A or E Shock.  Click to enlarge.]

Here are some feral date palms, growing wild at a substantial oasis in Death Valley, CA.  The date palm is Phoenix dactylifera (“finger-bearing”), but in this case we could call it P. bubifera, “owl-bearing.”  There’s an owl in this palm, although you can’t see it. >>

Owls seem to like roosting in palms.   Every birder the world over checks palms for owls.  Great horned, Barn, Grass, whatever the local species are — if there are owls and palms together in a habitat or region, they are likely to be acquainted.  This is because palms (like pine trees) provide what owls like: concealing, sturdy roosts, and habitat and food source for prey items.  An owl perched hidden in palm fronds has a grand view of scurrying, foraging rodents at its feet — imagine regularly finding dinner on your very own kitchen floor… or, to quote Homer: “Mmmm, Floor Pie!”  (that’s the epic Homer Simpson, not Homer the epic poet).

Spot the bird: In the center of this photo, you can see a vague milky blur on the right edge of the darkest dark: the vermiculation, or fine breast barring, of a Great horned owl, Bubo virginianus. >>

It’s nearly invisible because its distinctive yellow eyes aren’t visible; owls roosting in plain sight will often consider themselves concealed by squinting.  When even one eye is revealed, the bird become easier to spot. <<

I’ve checked a lot of palm trees.  I never find owls in them (although I know others who have), but I keep checking.  This repeated optimistic searching is known in our family as checking for lard. The term was coined after a cat named the Beefweasel found an unattended pile of chopped fat on a windowsill in our St. Louis apartment, waiting to be put outside for winter-hungry titmice and chickadees.  Making good her name, the Beefweasel wolfed down the yummy chunks.  Balancing on her hind legs and sniffing hard, she checked that bountiful window-ledge for years hoping for a fatty repeat.  Birders are well-known to check for lard, too: there was a nut tree in St. Louis that was searched every winter by local birders on field trips because once in a decade past it had hosted an out-of-range Bohemian waxwing.  Among birders, places to check for lard are passed down as oral tradition: I knew about that pecan tree, but the waxwing that made it famous alit there long before my time.

So out of habit and hope, I was checking these particular palms with my binoculars, searching the deepest shadows for Good Feathery Detail (vermiculation).  And there was an owl.

>> The bird never fully unhid; this was the maximum best sighting it allowed.

It was a Great horned owl, tucked in out of the breeze, and not at all worried about us (although we didn’t go very close, being equipped with telephoto lenses and optics — owls are like cats; sometimes you have to respect their invisibility, even if it’s just in their heads).

It’s so delightful to luck into a surprise owl (which, mostly, they are), that we talked about it for the rest of the trip.  We referred to this bird as “the Boss in her Office”, because she reminded me of a boss I once had, who lurked invisible at her desk most of the time.  Although she was hidden from us as we scurried around busily, it was never a good idea to forget she was there…