1st week of banding completed

This week we finished our first full week of banding here in Tortuguero. We have 5 banding sites, including our home site at Caribbean Conservation Cooperation (CCC) which we band every other day. CCC has 20 nets which we aim to open at 5:40, before the sun rises just as the first rays of light are penetrating the rainforest. The timing can be tricky, as we learned this week when we found ourselves extracting bats not birds from a net opened too early. Our home site consists of 5 nets arranged in the coastal scrub habitat, and 15 nets in the adjacent highly disturbed secondary forest. So far our most captured birds at CCC seem to be residents such as White Collared Manakin (my first bird banded in Costa Rica), Variable Seedeaters, and 3 common hummingbirds - Long-tailed Hermit, Bronzy Hermit and Rufous-tailed hummingbird. There are also some migrants hanging around, Prothonotary Warbler being the most common capture, but we also have duplicate catches of Chestnut-sided Warbler, House Wren, and Yellow-throated Vireo. Baltimore Orioles and Yellow Warblers also seem to be abundant, but we have yet to catch one.





A migrant female Prothonotary Warbler (above). The sex of these birds can be reliably determined based on the amount of white on the tail feathers (below). The males will have white in all tail feathers whereas in the females it will be lacking or barely visible in the inner tail feathers.




A Chestnut-sided Warbler, common throughout Costa Rica during the winter months. This, the first CSWA we caught, was already banded indicating that it had successfully migrated to North American last spring and returned to winter again in Tortuguero selecting the same exact area to winter as last year!!



White-collared Manakin (female above, male below). The males preform complex dances in leks in hopes up attracting a mate in which they produce a loud snapping sound with their wings. The snapping sound is a constant early morning occurrence however I have yet to find a dancing bird. Video of manakin dance




We also have a banding site located in the Parque National de Tortuguero. This expansive park was founded in 1975 to protect the important nesting grounds on the beaches for sea turtles as well as the surrounding rainforest. Banding here involves an early morning hike of about 25 minutes to the park where we set up our nets. Consisting of mostly primary rainforest we see (and hear) a totally different array of birds than at CCC. This place is a paradise for birders and the mornings are filled with bird songs such as the beautiful Song Wren (3rd link) Song Wren Song We spotted a White-Crowned Pigeon in the coastal scrub and unknown to me, this is an extremely rare sighting for Costa Rica. Upon entering it in ebird I received a confirmation email asking for more clarification. Luckily I snapped a terrible, documentation quality photo which I submitted and word got around in the birding community initiating a steady flow of birders in the country into the park to search for it. My first Costa Rican rare bird!


Documentation photo of a White-Crowned Pigeon in Tortuguero National Park.


Tortuguero National Park is home to a spectacular amount of biodiversity including 375 species of birds, 400 species of tree and over 2000 species of plants. It is also known for its abundance of the dangerous eyelash viper (Bothriechis schlegelii). This beautiful but highly venomous snake is present in many color morphs. It certainly keeps me on my toes and adds a whole new element to banding birds. I make it a rule to not step or touch anything without looking carefully. We took great care when we set up the site to make our net lanes wide to provide ample space to walk by the nets without touching vegetation. I have so far seen 2 (both of the yellow phase) in just 3 trips to the park.



An Eyelash Viper (below possibly a juvenile based on its much smaller size)



Next week we will band 3 times at CCC as well as travelling to 3 sites (the Airport, Cano Palma - a Canadian run tropical research station in old growth primary rainforest, and Tortuga Lodge - a tourist lodge located within primary rainforest where pale-billed woodpeckers, a relative of the ivory-billed woodpecker, are sometimes caught. With any luck I will get to band one myself).