my precious

We met these great guys on the bus to San Vito.  The guy on the right was a teacher who worked on a remote island off the coast of Canada teaching mostly indigenous Inuit children. The guy on the left was looking for somewhere to live outside America as he was convinced that the CIA or another government agency is spraying aluminium from the skies in order to combat global warming or control our minds. They are known as chemtrails on the internet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory he was happy to have his photo taken but didn't want it on the internet - hence the artistic smiley face.

After Corcovado we arranged to go birding in Coto Brus near San Vito with Rogers colleague Jason. Luckily for us Jason was also employed on a bird ringing project with Stanford University which meant we got to visit the bird ringing project in the morning and go birding at Las Cruces in the afternoon.

We stayed at a great B& B just outside San Vito.  On arrival we were greeted by the owner a very pregnant Kathleen who just a few hours later went into labour and had a baby boy.

View from the b&b

We visited a coffee plantation which was one of several sites in a Stanford University study comparing different habitats from coffee plantation through to primary forest with many grades of  forest and agriculture in between.  Here is a picture of an Olivaceous Picolet in the mist net.  

The same bird in the hand - this is Costa Rica's smallest woodpecker

Clay coloured robin, Costa Rica's national bird

weighing of birds can be somewhat undignified

Being caught in the net is pretty tiring for hummingbirds so they need a quick feed after being ringed.  Ringing hummingbirds is tricky as their legs are so small.

Going to check the nets in the coffee plantation

The social flycatcher has a brilliant red head but you can only really see it if you blow on its head

They took the usual fat scores and wing measurements as well as some feathers before attaching the ring

I think this is a blue throated golden tail

Hummingbirds also had Cellotape dabbed around their faces to pick up any pollen they may have had on them.

This humming bird didn't even need a pot to be weighed in

A fantastic bird the Tody Flycatcher

Cherie's Tanager which we've been seeing on bird feeders and in gardens.

This poor Manakin was kept in this net for two hours and fed plastic beads to record how fast they pass through the birds digestive system.  This will give researchers a rough idea of how far Manakins disperse seeds around the forest. We both thought that this wouldn't really tell you much unless you knew the movement patterns (which they do have) and toilet habits (which they don't have) of the birds. Also it is probably quite stressful for the bird making it poo more often than it normally would (making it fairly unhelpful data) also each species probably reacts to this stress differently (making them uncomparable).  To put it mildly we weren't convinced!!!!

The second site was secondary forest that had grown up from a coffee plantation last farmed 20 years ago.  It was encouraging to see many species now using the area, including our favourite Manakins.

Orange billed sparrow

Orange collared Manakin.  A few years ago at this site they had caught a gynandromorphic orange collared Manakin which had male plumage on one side of its body like the one here and the other half female plumage which is all green!  To get the idea here is a picture of a gynandromorphic cardinal http://news.discovery.com/animals/bi-color-cardinal-mystery-110531.html.

black hooded antshrike

Bananaquit sticking his tongue out - and defying gravity (forgot to spin the photo)

Green hermit Hummingbird

quite an impressive bill - add joke about expenditure here

We spent the afternoon birding around the Wilson Botanical Gardens and Las Cruces forest with Jason who could perfectly imitate all the birds.

This is Afrika a crazy little dog who was very pleased when we turned up to the botanic gardens as she could accompany us on our walk and she spent the next few hours hurtling at top speed through the undergrowth and rolling in ditches and piles of leaves (very probably scaring away some of the birds we wanted to watch - but she was still very entertaining), don't know how she doesn't get bitten by snakes!

A cecropia leaf umbrella

Looking up inside a strangler fig, the original tree trunk of the host tree has rotted away leaving the surrounding fig structure.

Ralph always keen to strip to his pants found yet another opportunity here......

...and this is what Afrika thought of it!

A jungle fairy

An observation tower in Las Cruces from which we looked across the tree tops and saw many new birds

View from the top

Agouti eating a banana stolen from the gardens bird feeder

More dogs, these were at our guides aunt and uncles house where he took us as he could guarantee we would see crested oropendulas, which we did.

Our guides dog chased passing vehicles at top speed which was both very amusing and quite tense making as he got very close to the wheels of the vehicles.

A random dog had appeared that day in their garden, it was very friendly, unlike their dog

Us with Jason displaying the Birds of Costa Rica book open on the manakin page!

That night in the town of San Vito which was incidentally founded by a group of Italian people in the 1960's we tried but failed to find a good pizza.  On the way home we called in along the town plaza to find a local schools football tournament underway.

The b&b Kathleen and her husband had built with an amazing Gaudi inspired eating area.  Her husband was a bird guide and gave us lots of top tips on where to find birds nearby.

Loba their dog