Ghost Glass Frog (Sachatamia ilex) by Twan Leenders
We’re back from a successful research trip to the Rara Avis Rainforest Reserve in Costa Rica with a group of hard-working and dedicated high school students from Litchfield, CT. There are many stories to tell and highlights to relay: we banded neotropical migrants, discovered rare frogs, tracked exotic mammals, extracted many miles of spider silk. Details will follow soon. For the time being, here is a picture of one of my personal favorite denizens of the Rara Avis forest, the Ghost Glass Frog (Sachatamia ilex), to give you a taste of some of the amazing animals we work with.
Read MorePhiladelphia Vireo (Vireo philadelphicus) by Twan Leenders
Here’s another bird that Sean and Twan netted, banded and photographed in Costa Rica, the Philadelphia Vireo. The species in particular has quite an extensive journey each spring and fall if it is ending up in a place like Costa Rica as the majority of them breed in the Canadian boreal forest. Traveling across the entire United States plus either Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico, or a place like Cuba, then most of Central America from south to north and then north to south again in the spring is no easy feat. Can you imagine what would happen if they came to their traditional winter site and...
Read MoreWood Thrush territory
On Thursday, December 12, during the first banding session at Cabo Blanco Nature Reserve we caught a Wood Thrush, one of our Neotropical migrants. What’s special about catching this species is it’s supposed to be a Caribbean slope migrant and at Cabo Blanco we’re on the Pacific slope. The other intriguing thing is that it’s only supposed to be a passage migrant, meaning that by early November it’s supposed to have left Costa Rica. This is the third year in a row we have witnessed this. It draws attention to the fact that we are still very unaware of where...
Read MoreOvenbird (Seiurus aurocapillus) by Sean Graesser
Apart from all of the locals Sean has been meeting some familiar friends in Costa Rica. His new Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapillus) pal could have been nesting in your backyard this summer but it’s spending the winter deep in Central America. Banding and research of many U.S. and Canadian breeding species on their winter grounds is vital to their overall conservation as they spend about half of their lives away from our borders. If we care about protecting them we must have the full picture and conduct international efforts in doing so.
Read MoreHummingbird banding begins
On December 3 we started hummingbird banding and research at Finca Pura Vida. To say these magnificent birds overwhelmed us is an understatement. We have been having feeders filled for us while we were away from our research station so that when we got here the birds would already be accustomed to the food source. We set our traps last night and filled all of our feeders to the brim to start early. On average over 50 individuals were feeding at one time and we had most likely over 300 individuals feeding in the time period we were working. We constantly had to close traps and nets to catch...
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