Early morning bird notes

Even though I'm here in the New World tropics, dipping into to some of my favorite blog spots, I have a sense of that Autumn-slipping-into-Winter time, that many of you are posting on. I've had a couple of days here in the new town house on my own. And I have a couple more ahead of me. I've taken to sitting on the back step with my coffee in the morning. I am up at 5am.

With all of the rain that we've been having - October is the height of the rainy season here in this part of Costa Rica, and we've been having some severe floods and landslides over the past 10 days - the morning skies are dark, but the colors rich.

I decided to snap some of what's about at that time of the day (although it's not the best time of day for an amateur to get good shots!).


















A country idyll! Maybe you can make out the Snowy Egrets that always accompany cattle in this part of the world, and the two white Ibis birds, which had just alighted in the tree above the grazing cow?

I'm not an avid bird watcher. I mean, I love to see them but I don't go out of my way to spot and identify them. But still, one can't help noticing that they're everywhere!
























A fiery-bellied Aracari (tucanet) perched on the upper most branch of a dead tree.























Some kind of hawk, puffing it's feathers in the cool dampness.























The same bird, but zoomed in. And talking of zoomed in...


















... A chestnut billed Tucan in flight. They have a perculiar manner of flight, they flap their wings a few times then, gliding, they swoop to a different level. Given the characteristic shape of their beaks, it made me think of needles passing invisible threads through the air.