Purple-crowned Fairy

Purple-crowned Fairies range from southernmost Mexico through Central America to Colombia and western Ecuador. They inhabit forests and tall, second-growth woodlands. You can also find them in gardens and forest edges. They often pierce flower-bases, taking a shortcut to extracting nectar. This behavior short-changes the flowers, which don’t get pollinated in the process (Arizmendi et al.).

This Purple-crowned Fairy perched motionless, high in the jungle canopy in Carara National Park on 4 July. No other Costa Rican hummingibrd has entirely white underparts.

Varied Dancer

On the morning of 4 July at the Villa Lapas eco-lodge, we photographed this Varied Dancer (Argia adamsi). This damselfly is found from Honduras south into South America. It favors sunny spots along streams (Haber).

This day had a different rhythm. We returned to Carara National Park for a second forest hike. Again the walk was interesting but frustrating. Birds were difficult to see. Dragonflies seemed to be discouraged by intermittent rain showers. Our group was spread out in a long line, making seeing much difficult for those not in the front of the parade. After a lunch, again at the Carara parking lot, we returned to the Tarcoles region, where we took a tourist boat ride into a mangrove swamp. Boat rides are not my favorite occupation. There is too much movement for really good photos, you are usually not very close to your subjects, and it seems like there is always someone blocking your view. We did see some fancy birds, but, again, very few dragonflies. That being written, I will need a couple of weeks to share with you the photos from the Fourth of July.

Streaked Flycatcher

This photo confirms the Handbook of Birds of the World’s assertion that Streaked Flycatchers are tolerant of human and degraded habitats. From scaffolding at the Villa Lapas Hotel on 3 July, this individual made repeated aerial flights after various insects. The species favors cicadas, beetles, wasps, and flying ants. They also take small lizards and a variety of fruits. When not near people, these flycatchers inhabit a variety of forest types and edges. Streaked Flycatchers range from central Mexico to northern South America. They are migratory in the Northern reaches of their distribution.

Ruddy Ground-Dove

Ruddy Ground-Doves greeted us at the Lapas Hotel on  3 July. These doves are ground feeders, common from Mexico to northern South America. Scattered records also exist from the southwestern United States. They eat grass seeds, spilled grain, and other human food. The species adapts to human alteration of the environment and may be expanding in range (Handbook of Birds of the World). 

Red-bordered Stink Bug

A Red-bordered Stink Bug at the Villa Lapas Hotel in western Costa Rica. This species is found from Mexico to Argentina. It eats leaves, occasionally causing drop damage.

Like all animals, stink bugs have three choices in life: hiding, running, or fighting. When it comes to fighting, stink bugs vigorously shake their antenna and secrete repulsive chemicals. Stink bug nymphs are often guarded by ants. The nymphs pay for the ants’ service by secreting sweet droplets, which the ants drink. Stink bugs, nevertheless, are often preyed upon by various ants, wasps, and other bugs (Americaninsects.net).

Turquoise-browed Motmot

Turquoise-browned Motmots are found from southeastern Mexico to Costa Rica. This species is common and conspicuous, often perching in the open as it searches for insects and small reptiles. After a productive afternoon on 3 July in the Tarcoles District of Puntarenas Provencie, Costa Rica, we stopped for supplies and to arrange for a boat tour the next day along the Tarcoles River. We discovered a pair of motmots in the garden of a local store.

Motmots are strange birds. They have racketed tails that they swing back and forth like a clock pendulum. The rackets are formed because the feather vanes are only weakly attached to the shafts. The vanes are not plucked by the birds, but simply detach.

Both sexes sport elaborate tails. Males use their tails to advertise sexual fitness. Males with the longest tails have greater reproductive success. When a predator is nearby, both sexes wag their tails as a “pursuit-deterrent signal.” The predator is warned that it has been seen by the motmot, thus attacks will likely be unsuccessful (Wikipedia).

Green-eyed Firetail

At the motel pond we visited in Tarcoles District in western Costa Rica on 3 July, we photographed several Green-eyed Firetails, Telebasis isthmica—a gorgeous damselfly. They inhabit temporary rain pools and marshy pastures. The species ranges from Mexico to South America.

Streak-headed Woodcreeper

Woodcreepers used to comprise their own family but many ornithologists now consider them to be a group of ovenbirds (Furnariidae) with stiff tail feathers adapted for tree climbing. Streak-headed Woodcreepers are found from southern Mexico to northern South America. They are common habitat generalists—they are happy in secondary growth and human-modified areas. The first photo was a glimpse of one at the Tarcoles ponds on 3 July. The second is from later in the trip at the Hotel de Campo near Caño Negro.

Common Blue-eye

We saw several Common Blue-eyes (Anatya guttata) around the Tarcoles ponds on 3 July in western Costa Rica. This image is of an immature female. The genus inhabits partially shaded ponds and other waterways (Cresswell).

These are interesting times for neotropical dragonfly watchers. As I have mentioned, dragonflies outside of the United States and Canada lack official common names. Dennis Paulson hopes all this changes in a few years when he publishes his guide to Costa Rican Odonata. Meanwhile, these dragonflies often have different common names. Paulson calls this one the Common Blue-eye, although, like many dragonflies, eye color varies among sex and age classes. Cresswell names this ode the Spotted Anatya—Anatya being the creature’s genus—which, offhand, means little to me. Perhaps a compromise of Spotted Blue-eye might be in order.

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck

We have seen Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks in Texas and Florida, where the species is common and expanding its range. This duck is also found in other southern states and in Arizona. Whistling-ducks used to be called tree-ducks, but the Black-bellied is far more often found in trees than are other species of whistling-ducks. Elsewhere in this blog I discussed how birds can sleep with one eye open. I wonder if the opposite eye of each of these birds is closed or open.

Black-bellied Tree Ducks were abundant in western Costa Rica. These two guarded one of the Tarcoles ponds. These ducks range south to northern Argentina (Dale and Thompson 2001).