This is a female shining honeycreeper at a place called La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica. The male is purplish blue with black wings. A lot of biological research goes on in the rain forest of La Selva and there are always a lot of researchers and college students hiking around the many trails. Fortunately, they also allow tourists to the area (mostly to help fund the research) and it’s one of the best place in Costa Rica for birds.
Here’s one that I haven’t yet been able to identify. For any of you entomologists out there, suggestions are certainly welcome. I was hiking in Pavones, Costa Rica, near the Panama border when I came across this little guy crawling up the stalk of a plant.
Every evening, just after the sun went down, the red eye tree frogs in Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica came down from their daytime resting spots high in the trees. The males croak to establish territory and to attract mates. I often will go out spotlighting alone, and finding the frogs in this particular location wasn’t difficult. The hard part was aiming the headlamp on the top of my head at the frog while at the same time looking through the viewfinder. Luckily, tree frogs tend to be patient subjects.