Back home at last after a five-month absence!  My birdwatching in Europe was attended by a lot of good luck and brought me some memorable experiences.  Now, however, it is just fantastic to be back in touch with my local area here on the slopes of the Turrialba Volcano.  Even before I was able to get out into the field, Chalo Porras brought me a photo he took this week at the bridge over Quebrada La Loca of a very stripey Fasciated tiger-heron (Tigrisoma fasciatum).

Was it a return to Quebrada La Loca for this tiger-heron?

Perhaps this is the same individual that was at this location last year in late March.  I have not been able to find it myself though I have scouted the area each day.  There are also intriguing reports in the village of the guaco, the Laughing falcon (Herpetotheres cachinnans).

My first walk around the garden was amazing because, as in the Teddy Bears’ Picnic, “every bird that ever there was, was gathered there”…., or so it seemed.  Subsequent days did not bring such good fortune, but here is my house list from my first few days back home.

1. Gray-headed chachalaca
2. Fasciated tiger-heron
3. Cattle egret
4. Sunbittern
5. Black vulture
6. Turkey vulture
7. Roadside hawk
8. Red-billed pigeon
9. White-winged dove           -4 birds seen in downtown Turrialba, not here at home.  Very common in most of the Central Valley, but I haven’t seen them in the area before.
10. White-tipped dove
11. Crimson-fronted parakeet
12. White-crowned parrot
13. Groove-billed ani
14. Bare-shanked screech-owl
15. Common pauraque
16. Rufous-tailed hummingbird
17. Keel-billed toucan
18. Rufous-winged woodpecker
19. Yellow-bellied elaenia
20. Common tody-flycatcher
21. Dusky-capped flycatcher
22. Great kiskadee
23. Social flycatcher
24. Gray-capped flycatcher
25. Masked tityra
26. Yellow-throated vireo
27. Yellow-green vireo
28. Brown jay
29. Blue-and-white swallow
30. Plain wren
31. House wren
32. White-breasted wood-wren
33. Clay-colored robin
34. Tennessee warbler
35. Chestnut-sided warbler
36. Black-throated green warbler
37. Golden-crowned warbler
38. Bananaquit
39. White-lined tanager
40. Summer tanager
41. Passerini’s tanager
42. Golden-hooded tanager
43. Blue-gray tanager
44. Palm tanager
45. Thick-billed seed-finch
46. Yellow-faced grassquit
47. Black-striped sparrow
48. Rufous-collared sparrow
49. Grayish saltator
50. Buff-throated saltator
51. Black-headed saltator
52. Rose-breasted grosbeak
53. Melodious blackbird
54. Great-tailed grackle
55. Black-cowled oriole
56. Baltimore oriole
57. Montezuma oropendola

Alternating sun and rain – just the tonic after a European winter!