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Watched this bird for about 10 minutes, and it never did stop preening itself. But given its gossamer-like feathers, I think this is understandable. 😉

Great Egret Preening Itself on its Nest #1

Great Egret Preening Itself on its Nest #2

Great Egret Preening Itself on its Nest #3

Great Egret Preening Itself on its Nest #5

It was odd to see a mass of these large, slender birds making nests in the middle of a thicket of trees. But it clearly works for them!

Male Heron Dismounting

Nesting Night Heron #1

Nesting Night Heron #2

Pair of Night Herons in a Tree

Last full day at the villa down here in Costa Rica, and this bright fellow turns up as I was strolling through the garden. I got a few annoyed chitter sounds from him as I inched closer, but he stayed around long enough for me to take some nice pics.

Streak-backed Oriole #1

Streak-backed Oriole #2

Streak-backed Oriole #3

These birds were always around the villa, usually too far away or moving too fast for me to get a decent shot of them. But in this case they both perched on a branch at roughly the same level as the second floor patio of the villa, and one started preening the other. This gave me enough time to get close and take some shots. This one was the best of the bunch (many of the other ones were plagued by the perennial branch-in-front-of-bird problem).

Pair of Rufous-naped Wrens

This brightly coloured bird appeared near the villa near Tamarindo only the one time that I witnessed, and was very skittish, with this being the sole shot that was not fully obstructed by tree branches. Still not completely happy with the shot, but it at least hints at the iridescent colours of the bird.

Black-headed Trogon

The last time I was in Costa Rica, I managed to see this bird once, and of course it was when I only had my camera phone with me. This time a pair of these birds appeared semi-regularly at the villa near Tamarindo, but they often moved on to presumably greener-pastures (or more likely, greener trees) elsewhere. Today they stuck around long enough for me to get a few decent shots of them. Even so, there’s a shot of one of them in flight, and the pics with the ocean in the background is just before they decided to push on.

The seem to follow roughly the same body plan as the North American blue jay, but a bit bigger, with a longer tail and a fancy top-knot of feathers instead of a crest. Unlike our millifluous Blue Jay, these guys only seem to make a very gutteral squawk.

White-throated magpie-jay #1

White-throated magpie-jay #2

White-throated magpie-jay #3

White-throated magpie-jay #4

White-throated magpie-jay #5

There have been all sorts of yellow-coloured flycatchers flying around the villa here in Costa Rica, but this little guy turned up and started singing his heart out. I feel lucky to have caught him in action before he flew off.

Grey-capped Flycatcher

These little (and not-so-little) guys are plentiful here in Costa Rica. Was kind of thrilled to shoot pics of a lizard with “saur” in its name. 😉

Juvenal Black Ctenosaur