The Hummer Deck at Rancho Naturlista is paradise! The trees, sky, and air are filled with the sights and sounds of thirty or more bird species of the rainforest. You will hear many of the birders wanting to capture the sounds to take home with them because of the calming tranquillity they instill in the listener. When you have your camera up to your eye, your head is filled with these sounds, making the photography that much sweeter (love the silence of mirrorless!). Then the Red-billed Pigeons thunder into the sky, a clap of wings that is startling, taking to the air with them are the other smaller birds that rely on the pigeons to sound the alarm. You can’t hear the person next to you it’s so loud, let alone the birds that a second before were contentedly feeding. Usually in the quiet, the shy birds appear from the depths of the forest, and just when you get your lens locked onto that small, shy bird, the explosion hits. Every time this happened last week, I would look up and see the Bicolored Hawk just perched there looking innocently. That’s until it spots potential prey, and then off he would fly. It was peaceful!

I am very guilty of, at times, being really narrowly focused on what I want to photograph to the exclusion of other subjects. A good example is my current Adventure to Costa Rica. We were here last year after the amazing Snowcap, the 2nd smallest hummer in the world. I got it, but I can do better so, here I am. And I was in front of the bush where they’ve been seen, and I was staring really hard to find it (there turned out being two present). In the same shrubs were a dozen or so Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds. They are everywhere, a pretty darn common hummer here, so a lot of the time I give them no never mind. Then I started to watch them, they were perching a lot. They not only perched, but were “talking” with their tails. With the light, the tails glowed, and it was truly obvious how they got their name. Yes, I did get shots of the Snowcap but they weren’t improvements over last year. But I did accomplish even better for the day with a photo I really love, capturing the uncommon from the common … hummer.

Them drops of rain were big! They were so big I was cowering under the deck to shoot. The critters of the rainforest though are more than use to it so it was just another day for them. Many like this White-necked Jacobin were out taking it all in. Simply a marvelous way to spend time, singin in the rain!

When I first learned that the Pied-billed Grebe can submerge just like a submarine going straight down rather than diving, I wanted that photograph. That was a whole lot easier to dream of than to execute. Pied means multi-colored and if you look at the bill, you can see how it was named Pied-billed Grebe. This truly small water bird tends to be shy keeping its distance specifically from wildlife photographers. Late one evening at Green Cay a couple of weeks back, this individual was highly focused on some food source right next to the boardwalk. It seemed not to notice me, which was lucky as it was frame filling. It was a dark hole so the ISO was cranked up to 3200 just to get 1/60 shutter speed. The grebe was actively going down and chasing its prey. It ignored me and I tried to move to keep up with its chasing. The water was shallow enough to see it darting back and forth under the surface. That would give me a little window into where I should expect it to pop back up and make a possible click. The twenty minutes of entertainment only garnished a dozen sharp images but it just takes one to make me smile. This one made me smile, a pied moment.

Wood Storks are a massive bird, much bigger than, say a Great Blue Heron. Starting in the late 1800s, they were shot in mass for their gorgeous breeding plumes for ladies fashions. Nearly wiped off the planet, a few survived. Today, through the efforts of many, they are up for delisting from the endangered species act. It’s quite the success story!

My first bird photography trip to Florida decades ago was specifically for the Wood Stork. They weren’t easy to find back then, and when we finally did, they weren’t in a location that was conducive for photography. But I was hooked and in the years since, have spent many days at their rockeries. My time at Wakadahatchee last week was spectacular, in large part because I could just watch Wook Stork’s antics. This time of year, nest platforms are being built, and pair bonds are being renewed. We’re so lucky we have them to watch and enjoy. You gotta love a happy ending for the prehistoric survivor!