Costa Rica 2009

Next January will mark my fourth trip to the little southern Central American country of Costa Rica. It is a birder's paradise. More than that, anyone with an interest in natural history will be awed and dazzled by the incredible diversity of life to be found in Costa Rica's varied habitats.

Our local guide, as in the prior trips, is the incomparable Noel Urena. Few if any know the birds of this lush country like Noel does, and he is a master at recognizing calls and finding even the hardest to locate of jungle birds.

We will be visiting four primary destinations, ranging from the Caribbean to the Pacific. Last year, we saw some 330 species of birds, not to mention all of the other fascinating biodiversity.

I like to keep these trips small, about eight people, so that everyone has maximum opportunities to see all birds and other wildlife. Due to two cancellations, we have room for a few more participants. Please let me know if you are interested, and I will send along additional details. My contact info is at the end of the post.

Costa Rican roadside scenery. This stream, tinted whitish-blue by mineral deposits, coursed under a roadway on the lower Caribbean slope. Of course, we stopped to admire the view and in the process found lots of wonderful birds and plants. Any stop anywhere is almost certain to produce a lot of noteworthy sightings.

A bit higher up the Caribbean slope. One can see the origin of the aptly named cloud forests in this shot. Even though it is only about half the size of Ohio, Costa Rica abounds in habitat diversity, ranging from humid lowland jungle to mountainous highlands populated by montane flora.

Birding is stupendous. Getting great looks at many species is often not a problem. I photographed this Bare-throated Tiger-Heron from a boat in the jungles of Tortuguero National Park, a vast waterlogged coastal jungle along the shores of the Caribbean. Access is by boat only, and this method of transport offers stupendous views of birds, monkeys, sloths, caimans, and other sundry beasts. We'll be going here in 2009.

Chestnut-mandibled Toucan, photographed while ingesting sensational Costa Rican java on the deck of the villa at Oro Verde preserve. We convene on this balcony each morning, and rack up dozens of species practically at one's fingertips. The cecropia tree that this toucan is gracing attracts incredible birds, including Oro Verde's mascot species, the Baird's Trogon. Oro Verde will be another stop on our itinerary.

The dates of the 2009 expedition will be January 20 - 30, and we'd love to have you along. It will be an unforgettable tropical trip, and if you haven't been to the tropics, expect a huge swell in your life list.

For further details, e-mail me at ambrosia@columbus.rr.com

Gooey Orange Dough

I bet few if any organisms that so many people know so little about elicit more oohs and aahs then fungi. Many species are dazzling eye-grabbers and nearly anyone who notices the especially showy fungi will take a moment for a closer view.

I do.

And did the other day, when an especially striking clump of orangish mushrooms begged for a look.

Golden Pholiota, Pholiota limonella. This is one of the wood decomposers, and an especially striking species. Fungi are rich and varied; some estimates put the worldwide species total at over one million. Of course, no one really knows, and if you want to enter a field that is ripe for new discoveries, become a mycologist (fungi scientist, or perhaps, a "fun guy").

Golden Pholiotas feel funny. Touch one, and the sensation is just like sticking your finger into wet spongy bread dough. Kind of makes you recoil. And unlike good bread, you wouldn't want to eat it. This species wouldn't kill you, but according to firsthand accounts you would probably become unpleasantly ill.

In fact, it is wise to avoid eating ANY mushrooms unless you really, truly know your stuff. Some, like a number of the Amanitas, can kill you right smack dead.

It's been a decent fall for spectacular mushrooming in some areas, and I look forward to photographing some more. Maybe I will this weekend, with my new cool camera. It just arrived today, and all goes well with this new setup, perhaps we can look forward to better and improved photos on this blog!

Truly Wasp-waisted

It is said of some women that they are wasp-waisted. This, generally, is a good thing, I suppose. And probably a goal to attain for some. But I wonder if many coveters of the wasp-waisted physique know where the term is derived, beyond a very general sense.

Let's have a look. I had the good fortune to stumble upon one of our most beautiful wasps yesterday, and this one could be the originator of the term.

The aptly named Yellow-and-black Mud Dauber, a real beauty. Most wasps are visually striking, if one can get over the fact that a lot of them can give a gnarly sting. Fortunately for us, few if any are adapted to kill people, and for the most part are quite docile to humankind. I had my macro lens within inches of this guy. He was still in a bit of an early morning torpor, but quickly came to and set about hunting spiders.

Some arbiter of fashion and style must have seen a wasp like this when he/she coined the wasp-waisted term. That is one threadlike abdomen, so small one wonders how this animal even functions. Sure creates a neat look, though.

Yellow-and-black Mud Daubers have an apropos scientific name: Sceliphron caementarium. You've probably seen their nests. Little bungalows of plastered mud tucked under bridges or building eaves, they are engineering marvels. It takes a lot of work and a lot of time to make one of these adobes of death. The wasp makes repeated trips with tiny glomerules of sticky mud, cementing each perfectly into place.

And death adobes they are. The above shot shows the inner chambers; final resting places for unfortunate spiders. The adult mud dauber captures and paralyzes its archnid prey, and somehow lugs it up to the nest. The victim is then sealed into the chamber along with a wasp egg. Upon hatching, the wasp larva has a fresh meal.

Ohio Young Birders Conference

Yesterday marked the second annual Ohio Young Birders Club conference, and it was an event to be proud of. The inaugural conference was held at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge's new visitor, a fine venue but one in which we were bursting at the seams. So this year it was on to a bigger facility: the Chestnut Ridge Elementary School in Walnut Creek, smack in the heart of scenic Holmes County.

Hats off to Kim Kaufman and all of her able volunteers at the Black Swamp Bird Observatory for not only making this conference possible, but for spearheading the whole young birders agenda. It is a growing movement here in Ohio, and their example is migrating far beyond the state's boundaries. Several other states have been in communication with Kim and BSBO seeking tips for starting their own programs, and a few have already sprung up. The American Birding Association even sent along Steve Carbol, their education manager, to study the program. Steve is a fantastic addition to ABA and it was a pleasure to meet him.

About 110 attendees made the scene, most from Ohio, but I remember people from Indiana, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Connecticut. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, too. Insofar as I know, this would make the 2nd OYBC conference the biggest of its kind, truly something to be proud of.

We started the day in the field, which is probably the best way to start such a conference. The locale was the vast wetlands of Funk Bottoms Wildlife Area, and the day began misty and cool. Here's the mob scene at the start, which was quickly organized into separate parties which then headed out to find birds.

Best bird of the day, and not the way you'll ever want to find one. This Barn Owl, a threatened breeding species in Ohio, was floating face down in the wetland. We speculate that it was attempting to capture a frog or some other aquatic beast, and dove into the water. The aquatic vegetation was dense in this spot, and the owl became snared and couldn't free itself. A teachable moment was made of the situation. The aforementioned Steve Carbol boldly waded into the muck-bottomed duckweed-choked mire and retrieved the bird. After good looks were had by all present, Andy Jones bundled it up and will make it part of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's bird collection, which he curates.

Fortunately, most of the birds that we saw were alive and well, including these Sandhill Cranes. We saw plenty of those; probably 30 or 40 were in the area and treated us to their haunting prehistoric rattles, and impressive visages. Lots of other birds were seen, and Funk was lousy with Swamp Sparrows. This should be a great place to search for both Le Conte's and Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrows in the coming weeks. As if bidding our team farewell, a beautiful Peregrine Falcon appeared and sat high in a dead snag.

We repaired to the school, and an excellent lunch, then it was into the meat of the program. This conference, like its successor, is entirely run by people that are in the age bracket required for OYBC membership: 12 to 18. Ben Thornton, age 14, was the emcee and performed so well that he runs the risk of being emcee for life at these gigs. Great job, Ben!

First up was Auriel Van Der Laar, who gave a program on the rail research that she has been involved with in the western Lake Erie marshes. This is ground-breaking work, and she, like all of the speakers, did an outstanding job of communication both with words and their PowerPoints. Bret McCarty was next, articulating the allure of winter time birding along the Cleveland lakefront, and offering up images of all the fantastic birds to be found. One must be willing to brave the cold, but as Bret demonstrated, those who do will see lots of interesting gulls and waterfowl. Then it was Jared Merriman, who gave an insightful program about ecotourism and birding. This guy has been around, for being 17! Jared took us on a whirlwind tour throughout the America's, and made the point that birders and our travels can be a positive influence on conservation.

Like misbehaving schoolboys, this crew rode the back benches of the auditorium. Closest to furthest, it's Jeff Bouton, extreme birder, globetrotter, and rep for Leica Sport Optics; Bill Thompson III, editor of Bird Watcher's Digest; and Jim McCarty, reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and author of a wonderful weekly birding column. Wedged between Bill and Jim are Phoebe Thompson and Bret McCarty.


This bird was in Jacob Bowman's talk, and it's a stumper. This is why Bill is looking through his bins in the preceding photo and why many of us bring our binocs along to talks like these - so we can practice our birding skills. Good luck trying to figure this one out!

After a break and the chance to meet people and catch up with old friends, it was back for the remaining programs. Jacob Bowman led off with an updated accounting of his ongoing BIG YEAR. If I remember correctly, he is at 243 to date and this is all in the general area of Holmes County. What makes this a truly monumental achievement is that he has done it all by BICYCLE! Next up was Ethan Kistler and Brad Wilkinson, who jointly gave a wonderful program on their recent travels to Ecuador. In addition to showing great shots of birds like Booted Racquettail and the intriguing habitats that are to be found, they tied in the positive effects of ecotourism on conserving Ecuadorian habitats. Topping off the program was our keynote speaker, Hope Batchellor, age 16, from Petersburg, New York. Hope became intrigued with the lack of published information relating to fledgling songbirds, especially their vocalizations, and set out to add to our knowledge. She treated attendees to not only photos of various fledgling species that she has worked with, but also recordings of their calls. A lot of this information, particularly the recordings, are not well represented in collections and her work and program were very impressive.

Here's the crew that made the whole day possible. Left to right: Ethan Kistler, Ben Thornton, Brad Wilkinson, Auriel Van Der Laar, Bret McCarty, Jared Merriman, Jacob Bowman, and Hope Batcheller. Great job everyone, and congratulations to each of you!

The Ohio Young Birders Club welcomes adult supporting members. This is a great way to support the club - please join us! For more information just GO RIGHT HERE.

Bark Bird

Last Saturday, while out on the afternoon field trip as part of the Lake Erie Raptor Symposium, we were treated to wonderful views of one of our most interesting albeit inconspicuous birds.

Brown Creepers are easy to miss. Most people outside of the birding community have never seen one, I would wager. But creepers can be everywhere. They aren't common nesters in Ohio, but we get plenty in migration, and many overwinter some years. Anyone who hikes regularly in the woods has been in close proximity to a Brown Creeper, to be sure.

To maximize finding these bitty chunks of feathered bark, one must have decent ears and tune in to the high, sibilant tssss sounds uttered by creepers. That's how we first became aware of them last Saturday, and how I've found the vast majority of all creepers that have crossed my path.

To say they are cryptic is an understatement Look up cryptic in the dictionary, and it wouldn't be surprising to see a creeper picture.

A fine trunk of an Eastern Cottonwood, Populus deltoides. Good Brown Creeper foraging substrate, but they aren't overly selective about the timber they work. They'll blend well with nearly anything. See him? Right there - dead center! We attracted this bird in close with skillful imitations, much to the delight of the crowd. Senor Creeper decided to chill for a bit and plastered himself to the bark over our heads for several minutes. A number of our party had not seen one before, or at least this well, so this may have been the most fawned over Brown Creeper on the globe that day.

Same pic, cropped in a bit. Now, I am sure, you can see the bird. The tawny mottling on bark-brown feathers conspire to create the look of lichen-dappled bark, and when a creeper freezes they become nearly invisible. Woe to the insect attempting to hide in the fissures and furrows of the bark. Creepers very systematically and thoroughly poke and probe their way up the tree, probably missing little. Put yourself in their shoes. The perspective must be an interesting one.

Like the stripes on a barber pole, they spirally ascend the tree, working it over. When the summit is reached, or at least a maximum altitude in the eyes of the creeper, they drop. And I do mean drop. Looking just like a dead leaf fluttering to the ground, the bird flutters to the base of a nearby tree and resumes operations.

Here is an outstanding Brown Creeper photo, courtesy of Michael Woodruff and Flickr. Check that slender scimitar of a bill. Perfectly designed for probing bark and extracting insect bounty. Sharp claws and stiff tail feathers complete the package and enable the creeper to live its vertical lifestyle.

Strange doesn't even cover it

A colleague at work, Ken Pendley, is quite the amateur entomologist and regularly produces all manner of insect oddities. He scored big time yesterday in the world of strange when he brought in a mantisfly. I can't resist quoting from the excellent book Field Guide to Insects of North America, by Eric Eaton and Kenn Kaufman: "Mantisflies resemble a science experiment gone horribly wrong. Imagine shrinking a praying mantis, then attaching its front end to the hind end of a lacewing, and you have a mantispid".

Sums it up pretty well.

Good thing its only about an inch long. It's from critters like this that the Japanese no doubt find the inspiration to create some of those god-awful creatures in B-movie horror flicks. But this one is real. They do look a lot like praying mantids, at least the forelegs. Mantisflies are predators, and even though they are closely allied with lacewings and not praying mantises, convergent evolution is at work here, and they have evolved similar powerful forelegs, the better to seize prey with.

There are a number of mantisflies, but I believe this one is Mantispa sayi. It has incredible cobalt-blue eyes with a star-shaped pattern in the center. You can see the Popeye-like forearms here. Wouldn't want to be the unfortunate insect that wandering into the path of this thing.

This excellent photo courtesy Tim Daniel, Ohio Division of Wildlife. The forelegs armed with stiff raptorial spines can be seen. Those stiff spines reduce - probably eliminate - any chance of slipping through the mantisfly's clutches.

The life cycle of most mantisflies is even stranger than their appearance. They lay dozens of tiny eggs along pathways regularly used by spiders. When the tiny mantispid hatches, it attempts to leap onto a passing spider. If successful, it clambers on top and works its way toward the base of the thorax, a location that is fairly safe from the spider's grasp.

Along it goes, like an Arab on a camel, until the spider begins construction of its nest. At just the right time, after the spider eggs have been laid but before the nest is to sealed in by webbing, the larval mantispid dismounts and scurries into the spider nest. This can only be a risky proposition, and may explain why these mantisflies are not very common.

Once the young spiderlets begin hatching, the larval mantisfly begins feeding on them. All goes well, and eventually another of the bizarre alienlike predators shown above emerges; the final stage of what is certainly one of the strangest insect life cycles there is.

This is almost too weird to believe, but true.

Confusing Fall Frugivore

Roger Tory Peterson coined the phrase "confusing fall warbler", because there is a suite of similar looking, dull-plumaged fall warblers that can be, well, confusing. In recent years some of the birding elite decry this expression, claiming that fall warblers are really not confusing. They fail to remember their beginnings, and that not everyone is an elite birder. Some fall warblers are indeed confusing, especially when seen in brief fits and spurts high in breeze-blown foliage.

The species that I am sharing below is a "sort of confusing fall warbler". It isn't as bad as some of its ilk, but certainly not as flashy and distinctive as a spring male would be.

Photographed last Saturday, right outside the Black Swamp Bird Observatory's building at the entrance to Magee Marsh in Ottawa County. Probably a first-year male, and he was a feisty little tiger. Note the prominent streaking below, pretty much from stem to stern.

He was actively engaged in frugivory, or fruit-eating. The berries of this Gray Dogwood held a strong allure, and the bird would make regular visits to sample them. It wouldn't swallow the fruit; rather it would carve out a hole in the top and suck the juices out. This species has a very fine bill and is well-known for foraging on nectar in migration and on the wintering grounds. During the breeding season in the boreal forests of northern North America, they depend heavily on spruce budworms.

Before long, this bird, if all goes well, will be in a place that many of us will envy once winter sets in. The tropical climes of the West Indies. A particularly tough individual spent part of the winter in Holmes County last year; you can see its photo in the newly arrived Ohio Cardinal.