Costa Rica's Amazing Birds

 

Costa Rica has amazing birds like this green honeycreeper at Arenal National Park. It's one of the most biologically diverse places on Earth.

A juvenile great currasow has a dazzling pattern of contrasting black and white. 

The adult male currasows are jet black with a bright yellow comb on their beak.

Great currasows are becoming rarer in many places where they were found. These turkey like birds live in the rainforest of Arenal.

A pretty blue-gray tanager.

Bananaquits sip nectar like hummingbirds. But they weigh 10 times as much and can't hover like their fleet-winged friends.

A golden-naped woodpecker posed for me on a dusty road outside Monteverde.

A chestnut-mandibled toucan relaxed outside my window at Arenal Volcano. They returned to the same trees each night to soak up the last evening light.

These collared aracaris were yard birds outside my room, which was the most scenic place I've ever stayed. I love toucans!

The Pacific coast of Costa Rica is home to scarlet macaws. I saw these hanging upside down in someone's front yard!

Motmots stick to the shadows in deep rainforests. There are several species including this blue-crowned.

This brown jay was surprisingly hard to see in the dappled sunlight even though he was right in front of me.

A pretty rufous-naped wren. About twice the size of a Carolina wren.

Green honeycreepers are habitual visitors to fruit feeders outside La Fortuna.

A pretty red-legged honeycreeper shows off its vibrant yellow wings.

The Montezuma oropendola is another incredible bird that visits fruit feeders.

A not-so-secretive wood rail was soaked from one of the frequent downpours in the wet season.

A yellow caracara was a fun sighting in Manuel Antonio National Park while I was looking for monkeys.

The squabbling of chachalacas are hard to miss. These bush turkeys are pretty common.

A yellow-crowned euphonia is a showstopper in the Pacific rainforests of Costa Rica.

I drove the painful dirt road from La Fortuna to Monteverde just to photograph hummingbirds at the coffeeshop's feeders outside national park, ha. I spent two days there before I even set foot in the park so I could spend quality time with birds like this lesser violetear.

Why do hummingbirds like this magenta-throated woodstar get all the best names? This bird is so small they call it a bee hummingbird. One of the smallest birds in the world. Amazing!

The stripe-tailed hummingbird can look dark and dull, but in the right light it lights up in iridescence. Getting shots like this is why I spent days of patient photography here. These birds were just incredible.

A beautiful purple-throated mountaingem. 

Violet sabrewings bullied the other hummingbirds at the feeders. They were the largest birds there. But it was difficult to capture just how stunning those blue feathers are.