outdoor photography

Streaked Flycatcher Tarcoles River When I was in Costa Rica, I saw lots of flycatcher. I couldn't believe how many flycatchers I saw. There are three, though, that look very similar--Sulphur-bellied Flycatchers, Streaked Flycatchers, and Pirated Flycatchers.  Sulphur-bellied have been seen in Florida on very rare occasions, and I believe Pirated have as well. These three flycatchers seem to be pretty common in Costa Rica, though. I saw Streaked Flycatchers the most.  Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher Carrara National Park Sulphur-bellied Flycatchers have nearly all-black bills and a large black malar area. Streaked Flycatchers have a lot more pink on the bill and not nearly as much black in the malar area. By malar area, I mean basically the sides of the chin area. Piratic Flycatcher Playa Hermosa Piratic Flycatchers are smaller, and they have proportionately small bills, making them far easier to separate from the other two, but they still look pretty similar....

Great Kiskadee Tres Regalos Condos Everytime I go to Mexico I love seeing Great Kiskadees. They're beautiful birds, and they're always calling, it seems, so you always know they're around. But there are other species of flycatchers that look very much like them. The Social Flycatcher has a smaller bill and a slightly different facial pattern. I've seen those in Mexico a lot too. Boat-billed Flycatchers have much larger bills, and I saw my first in Costa Rica this past May (I've been wanting to do a post like this for some time, but I've wanted to wait until I actually saw a Boat-billed Flycatcher. And there's one more I can add here, the Gray-capped Flycatcher. This flycatcher has a grayer head, so it's a bit easier to separate from the others, but still, they look pretty similar. Boat-billed Flycatcher Tres Regalos Condos Social Flycatcher Tres Regalos Condos Gray-capped Flycatcher Carara National Park Interestingly, only the ...

During the first week of May my wife and I went to Costa Rica for our 25th wedding anniversary. It was a wonderful time! I spent most of the mornings out in the local parks looking for wildlife. The nice thing is that the sun comes up around 5:30am, which gives me plenty of time to be out in nature before my wife wants to think about getting up. Over the course of the week, I saw 152 species, and 103 of them were completely new to me. I decided to put together a slide show of some of my favorite photos. I hope you enjoy it.  I'll follow up with more photographs in future posts.