Date: 5/16/25 5:29 am From: martha pfeiffer <mjbpfeiffer...> Subject: Re: [VTBIRD] VTBIRD Digest - 14 May 2025 to 15 May 2025 (#2025-93)
Costa Rica
Thanks, Ted, for the highlights of your Costa Rica trip. Brought back so
many memories of my winters spent there.
Martha Pfeiffer in Dorset
On Fri, May 16, 2025 at 12:00 AM VTBIRD automatic digest system <
<LISTSERV...> wrote:
> There are 3 messages totaling 330 lines in this issue.
>
> Topics of the day:
>
> 1. Cerulean Warbler; Snake Mt. South; Bridport
> 2. April 28 - May 13 2025 (2)
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 15 May 2025 09:46:33 -0400
> From: Ian Worley <iworley...>
> Subject: Cerulean Warbler; Snake Mt. South; Bridport
>
> Hi all,
>
> After several days of checking the well-known location for Cerulean
> Warblers on the southern end of Snake Mountain in Addison County, this
> morning's visit revealed a single singer. It took 30-40 minutes of
> waiting, then occasional single songs were heard. The songs were not
> nearby nor apparently robust. I could not determine a clear direction
> from my listening location (by the Nature Conservancy sign; with trees
> that have bright blue paint markings.)
>
> If unfamiliar with the location it shows well on the eBird species map
> at 44.01, -73.26 lat/long; there is a cluster of species pins that have
> accumulated over the past 15 or so years. Most approaches are from
> Mountain Road, where it crosses the mountain (west to east) about
> 0.6miles to the north. There is no trail. There are no identified
> parking locations.
>
> Good birding!
>
> Ian
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 15 May 2025 10:20:39 -0400
> From: Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...>
> Subject: April 28 - May 13 2025
>
> *COSTA RICA: A synopsis of the highlights:*
>
> I left Vermont to daffodils and maple keys, pine warblers and
> white-throated sparrows, and returned to tulips and lilacs, indigo buntings
> and scarlet tanagers. In between the daffodils and tulips, I saw this:
>
> Of the more than *320 species of birds* recorded on our 16-day trip into
> the mountain wilds on both slopes of the continental divide, the
> rainforests, cloud forests, and both coasts of Costa Rica, we were
> entertained by *several lingering Neotropical migrants*: a flock of
> Wilson's warblers picking through the stunted trees on a 12,000-foot
> dormant volcano,; a Swainson's thrush; an eastern wood pewee and a
> yellow-bellied flycatcher in the same salt-stunted wild almond, four paces
> from the Caribbean; semi-palmated plovers; spotted sandpipers;
> black-bellied plovers; ruddy turnstones; a whimbrel, and a least sandpiper,
> foraging near a sleeping crocodile; an upland sandpiper on the margin of a
> jungle river; an eastern kingbird; an olive-sided flycatcher; a
> chestnut-sided warbler; a Blackburnian warbler. As well as resident
> American dippers and black phoebes along rugged mountain streams, and acorn
> woodpeckers near resplendent quetzals.
>
> *Most unexpected sighting: *Four brown noddies, exhausted, along the
> Caribbean shore in Tortuguero (Pacific terns blown off course). One stood
> on a driftwood log pushed around by the crashing surf.
>
> *Among the busy birds*: at sunrise (but shaded and softened by rising
> mist), a pair of resplendent quetzals feeding a chick in nest cavity, (more
> or less) unobstructed; *four* species of motmots; *four* species of
> toucans; a roadside hawk perched above a road and a humorless laughing
> falcon standing on a muddy bank; a sungrebe; *ten *species of woodpeckers;
> (among them, the pale-billed, a member of the genus *Campephilus* that
> includes our extinct ivory-billed) *six* species of woodcreepers;
> *thirty-three* species of flycatchers: *eleven *species of parrots,
> including gorgeous and noisy pairs of both scarlet and great green macaws;
> *three* species of manakins; and *twenty-three *species of tanagers.
>
> *Best sighting in a torrential downpour: *black and yellow silky
> flycatcher, water dripping down long tail feathers.
>
> *A most exciting bird*: a sunbittern and feeding her chick on the hem of a
> stream. Through the trees, beyond the stream? A boys' soccer game.
>
> *Hummingbird total*: *33* species (out of 54 known species). One morning,
> in the cloud forest, a hummingbird jamboree: snowcaps, green thorntails,
> green-breasted mangos, white-naped Jacobins, striped hermits, and
> scintillant hummingbirds.
>
> *The most interesting thing I learned:* After a slaty flower-piercer
> punctures the base of a tubular flower and sips nectar, hummingbirds,
> mostly gray-tailed mountain gems, go directly to the hole for nectar rather
> than the more conventional approach at the head of the flower.
>
> *The second most interesting thing I learned: *there's no zoning in a
> Montezuma oropendola colony. Nests three to six feet long, dangle from
> limbs like dull, disorganized Christmas stockings. Mom builds. Dad
> inspects, bouncing and stretching the tightly woven fibers and vines. Nests
> are in constant motion, rocking to the wind, the rain, and the commotion
> next door.
>
> *The last bird ticked*: Russet-nape wren on a fence post.
>
> *The cutest mammal*: infant coatimundis on a morning stroll, tails up, long
> noses down, shepherded by their mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and other
> female relatives. A maleless troop of more than forty.
>
> *The most entertaining primate*: spider monkeys swinging through the
> canopy, long tails gripping branches like a fifth limb, and then eating
> legumes, bits of green seedpods dribbling from their mouths.
>
> *The biggest surprise*: a tamandua, a mid-sized arboreal anteater, lounging
> head down in a sea grape by the Pacific. The pink pads of its feet appeared
> pillow-soft; its claws talon-sharp.
>
> *The second biggest surprise:* the sun-bleached bones of a sea turtle
> (green or loggerhead), likely predated while nesting by a jaguar.
>
> *The largest reptile*: American crocodile. Many log-like crocs (fifteen to
> eighteen feet long) idled on the surface of the Tarcoles River. Another in
> Corcovado, slept on the far mudbank across a small, shallow tidal river,
> mouth wide open. Cooling off in front of a small parade of shorebirds and
> wading birds. Lulled by the Pacific crashing.
>
> *Four species of snakes*, including an almost invisibly camouflaged
> fer-de-lance and an arboreal eyelash palm pitviper (*bright *yellow morph),
> coiled in a vine, a sit-and-wait predator of nectaring hummingbirds.
>
> *The biggest lizard*: green iguana.
>
> *Cutest lizard: *common house gecko
>
> *The most entertaining lizard: *the basilisk (the Jesus Christ lizard), ran
> across the water's surface. (I searched vainly for the *mythical* Mose
> lizard, hoping to see it part the waters and stroll across the Sierpe
> River.)
>
> *Most charismatic frog*: Red-eyed treefrog. Two mated above a forest pool.
>
> *Close second*: strawberry dart frog.
>
> *Most enormous toad*: Marine toad, big as a shoe … large enough to trip
> over.
>
> *The most extraordinary insect*: blue morpho butterflies (*Morpho
> menelaus*),
> each the size of an open hand, flitting through the jungle. The upper
> surface of their wings is iridescent blue. Undersurface, mottled brown.
> Like a Penn and Teller trick, when a morpho flies, it stands out. When
> perched, it vanishes.
>
> *The second most extraordinary insect: *the duckling swallowtail moth
> (*Urania
> fulgens* (a.k.a. pato de cola), a mid-sized, iridescent green and black
> moth migrating toward Panama. Duckling swallowtails are half the size of
> our black swallowtail butterflies. They moved because their caterpillars
> had denuded a food source, and the new growth would be toxic for at least
> two years.
>
> *Sex on a branch: *yellow-throated toucans. More vertical than horizontal,
> the male had to carefully position his head and oversized bill to maintain
> balance on the female's back.
>
> *Sex in a puddle:* dozens of marine toads, a hyperactive colony just off
> the sidewalk in Tortuguero. An orgy in the pouring rain. Males calling,
> splashing, jostling, pushing, dunking … choreography by World Wide
> Wrestling Association
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 15 May 2025 19:32:05 -0400
> From: Rita Pitkin <ritapitkin15...>
> Subject: Re: April 28 - May 13 2025
>
> Sounds…um…fantastic!
>
> On Thu, May 15, 2025 at 10:22 AM Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...> wrote:
>
> > *COSTA RICA: A synopsis of the highlights:*
> >
> > I left Vermont to daffodils and maple keys, pine warblers and
> > white-throated sparrows, and returned to tulips and lilacs, indigo
> buntings
> > and scarlet tanagers. In between the daffodils and tulips, I saw this:
> >
> > Of the more than *320 species of birds* recorded on our 16-day trip into
> > the mountain wilds on both slopes of the continental divide, the
> > rainforests, cloud forests, and both coasts of Costa Rica, we were
> > entertained by *several lingering Neotropical migrants*: a flock of
> > Wilson's warblers picking through the stunted trees on a 12,000-foot
> > dormant volcano,; a Swainson's thrush; an eastern wood pewee and a
> > yellow-bellied flycatcher in the same salt-stunted wild almond, four
> paces
> > from the Caribbean; semi-palmated plovers; spotted sandpipers;
> > black-bellied plovers; ruddy turnstones; a whimbrel, and a least
> sandpiper,
> > foraging near a sleeping crocodile; an upland sandpiper on the margin of
> a
> > jungle river; an eastern kingbird; an olive-sided flycatcher; a
> > chestnut-sided warbler; a Blackburnian warbler. As well as resident
> > American dippers and black phoebes along rugged mountain streams, and
> acorn
> > woodpeckers near resplendent quetzals.
> >
> > *Most unexpected sighting: *Four brown noddies, exhausted, along the
> > Caribbean shore in Tortuguero (Pacific terns blown off course). One stood
> > on a driftwood log pushed around by the crashing surf.
> >
> > *Among the busy birds*: at sunrise (but shaded and softened by rising
> > mist), a pair of resplendent quetzals feeding a chick in nest cavity,
> (more
> > or less) unobstructed; *four* species of motmots; *four* species of
> > toucans; a roadside hawk perched above a road and a humorless laughing
> > falcon standing on a muddy bank; a sungrebe; *ten *species of
> woodpeckers;
> > (among them, the pale-billed, a member of the genus *Campephilus* that
> > includes our extinct ivory-billed) *six* species of woodcreepers;
> > *thirty-three* species of flycatchers: *eleven *species of parrots,
> > including gorgeous and noisy pairs of both scarlet and great green
> macaws;
> > *three* species of manakins; and *twenty-three *species of tanagers.
> >
> > *Best sighting in a torrential downpour: *black and yellow silky
> > flycatcher, water dripping down long tail feathers.
> >
> > *A most exciting bird*: a sunbittern and feeding her chick on the hem of
> a
> > stream. Through the trees, beyond the stream? A boys' soccer game.
> >
> > *Hummingbird total*: *33* species (out of 54 known species). One morning,
> > in the cloud forest, a hummingbird jamboree: snowcaps, green thorntails,
> > green-breasted mangos, white-naped Jacobins, striped hermits, and
> > scintillant hummingbirds.
> >
> > *The most interesting thing I learned:* After a slaty flower-piercer
> > punctures the base of a tubular flower and sips nectar, hummingbirds,
> > mostly gray-tailed mountain gems, go directly to the hole for nectar
> rather
> > than the more conventional approach at the head of the flower.
> >
> > *The second most interesting thing I learned: *there's no zoning in a
> > Montezuma oropendola colony. Nests three to six feet long, dangle from
> > limbs like dull, disorganized Christmas stockings. Mom builds. Dad
> > inspects, bouncing and stretching the tightly woven fibers and vines.
> Nests
> > are in constant motion, rocking to the wind, the rain, and the commotion
> > next door.
> >
> > *The last bird ticked*: Russet-nape wren on a fence post.
> >
> > *The cutest mammal*: infant coatimundis on a morning stroll, tails up,
> long
> > noses down, shepherded by their mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and other
> > female relatives. A maleless troop of more than forty.
> >
> > *The most entertaining primate*: spider monkeys swinging through the
> > canopy, long tails gripping branches like a fifth limb, and then eating
> > legumes, bits of green seedpods dribbling from their mouths.
> >
> > *The biggest surprise*: a tamandua, a mid-sized arboreal anteater,
> lounging
> > head down in a sea grape by the Pacific. The pink pads of its feet
> appeared
> > pillow-soft; its claws talon-sharp.
> >
> > *The second biggest surprise:* the sun-bleached bones of a sea turtle
> > (green or loggerhead), likely predated while nesting by a jaguar.
> >
> > *The largest reptile*: American crocodile. Many log-like crocs (fifteen
> to
> > eighteen feet long) idled on the surface of the Tarcoles River. Another
> in
> > Corcovado, slept on the far mudbank across a small, shallow tidal river,
> > mouth wide open. Cooling off in front of a small parade of shorebirds and
> > wading birds. Lulled by the Pacific crashing.
> >
> > *Four species of snakes*, including an almost invisibly camouflaged
> > fer-de-lance and an arboreal eyelash palm pitviper (*bright *yellow
> morph),
> > coiled in a vine, a sit-and-wait predator of nectaring hummingbirds.
> >
> > *The biggest lizard*: green iguana.
> >
> > *Cutest lizard: *common house gecko
> >
> > *The most entertaining lizard: *the basilisk (the Jesus Christ lizard),
> ran
> > across the water's surface. (I searched vainly for the *mythical* Mose
> > lizard, hoping to see it part the waters and stroll across the Sierpe
> > River.)
> >
> > *Most charismatic frog*: Red-eyed treefrog. Two mated above a forest
> pool.
> >
> > *Close second*: strawberry dart frog.
> >
> > *Most enormous toad*: Marine toad, big as a shoe … large enough to trip
> > over.
> >
> > *The most extraordinary insect*: blue morpho butterflies (*Morpho
> > menelaus*),
> > each the size of an open hand, flitting through the jungle. The upper
> > surface of their wings is iridescent blue. Undersurface, mottled brown.
> > Like a Penn and Teller trick, when a morpho flies, it stands out. When
> > perched, it vanishes.
> >
> > *The second most extraordinary insect: *the duckling swallowtail moth
> > (*Urania
> > fulgens* (a.k.a. pato de cola), a mid-sized, iridescent green and black
> > moth migrating toward Panama. Duckling swallowtails are half the size of
> > our black swallowtail butterflies. They moved because their caterpillars
> > had denuded a food source, and the new growth would be toxic for at least
> > two years.
> >
> > *Sex on a branch: *yellow-throated toucans. More vertical than
> horizontal,
> > the male had to carefully position his head and oversized bill to
> maintain
> > balance on the female's back.
> >
> > *Sex in a puddle:* dozens of marine toads, a hyperactive colony just off
> > the sidewalk in Tortuguero. An orgy in the pouring rain. Males calling,
> > splashing, jostling, pushing, dunking … choreography by World Wide
> > Wrestling Association
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of VTBIRD Digest - 14 May 2025 to 15 May 2025 (#2025-93)
> ************************************************************
>
--
please use my new email address:
<mjbpfeiffer...>
