TropicAves: Costa Rica Nature Tours

02/11/2023

Que orgullo 🥰❤️💛

16/07/2022

El Instituto Monteverde busca:

Persona Encargada de Dirección Académica

Persona encargada de desarrollar, implementar y promocionar los programas académicos; facilitando la integración de estudios académicos, investigación e iniciativas comunitarias. De igual manera supervisa lo relacionado a presupuestos, la experiencia y seguridad estudiantil, y promueve la misión y visión con los distintos clientes de la organización.

Para ver la descripción completa del puesto de trabajo y aplicar, ingrese a este link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OUcw5IVaSOUBUvUAGwMWyA5xxS6HW8St/view

08/07/2022

In love with this little rain frog from La Selva Biological station in Sarapiqui!

🌨🌨🌨🌨🌨🌨🌨🌨🌨🌨🌨

The Pygmy Rain Frog (Pristimantis ridens) shows great variation in both color and pattern. This particular individual is a very pale, pinkish-yellow with some cool markings! But check out the round disks on each digit and the lack of toe webbing…that will help you cue in to the species 🐸😁🐸

The work week is almost over… hang in there frog lovers and enjoy this froggy Friday!

🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

07/07/2022

07/07/2022

26/06/2022

🍃UNA SEMANA POR EL PINZÓN CAFETALERO 🙌

¡Miren esto! 🤩🤩🤩
Nuestro colega paraiseño Cristian Bonilla de AvesTikas ha donado al proyecto dos hermosísimos cuadros de su fotografía del Pinzón Cafetalero, misma que fue tomada en Ujarrás y que además fue parte de su exposición fotográfica en el Jardín Lankester.

¡Mil gracias, Cristian!

23/06/2022

Happy World Rainforest Day!
🐸🌳🪲🍃🦋🌳🪲🍃🐸
This adorable rain frog, in the rain, in the rainforest, wishes you happy world rainforest day!
It is also raining while I’m posting this

20/06/2022

View from the office, this time I mean literally. I just stuck my phone outside of my home office window 3 minutes ago and snapped this photo. I love living in my little cabin (it’s called “El Nido, which means the nest!) smack dab in the middle of the cloud forest 🥰🍃🪲✨🦋
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20/06/2022

✨✨🪲The office today 🪲✨✨

Stay tuned for a highlight reel of some cool cloud forest organisms we saw on today’s birding adventure!

I always end field days with a deep sense of gratitude. It is an honor and a privilege to be an ambassador of this majestic forest.

Gracias Costa Rica, gracias Monteverde por dejarme ser parte de ustedes 🪲🍃

01/06/2022

This sulky little buddy is a Cabanis’s ground sparrow… only found in a small range within Costa Rica. We don’t even know enough about them to effectively conserve them!! Will you help us solve that problem by donating (link in the “Cabanasi Project” stories above) towards buying equipment that will allow Costa Rican researchers .a.irola and to monitor and eventually inform conservation decisions about these populations??

30/05/2022

26/05/2022

I went out to look for this special, furtive little bird in the wee hours of the morning and took this (sorry, not great!) photo from under a shady coffee plant at with my friends .forest.experience and , to share with you! 🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦

Today, I want to tell you a little bit about the Cabanis’s ground sparrow.
🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡

Did you know that Costa Rica only has 4 “mainland endemic” species of birds (aka only found within the political boundaries of the mainland and nowhere else in the world) and that this sparrow pictured here is one of them?? 🥹
🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎

The thing is, it is considered a near threatened species and we know so little about its distribution and nesting behavior that we are ill-equipped to help conserve it! Will you help us??

Stay tuned for a reel and stories coming up later… I’ll have more details about our adventure finding this bird, explain what makes it so special, and let you know how you can help us help it! (Using the link below to donate to the through the Rainforest Biodiversity Group.
🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍

https://www.gofundme.com/f/2022-rbg-birdathon?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer

’sgrpundsparrow

18/05/2022

Mounting scientific evidence supporting the health benefits of the outdoors is helping shape innovations in medicine, education, and more.

17/05/2022

This Spiny-tailed or Black Iguana (Ctenosaur similis) is common throughout its range on the Pacific side of Costa Rica.

🌴🌴🌴🌴🌴🌴🌴🌴🌴🌴🌴

It eats more vertebrate prey (crabs 🦀on the coasts…and one individual was even observed with a bat 🦇 in its mouth!!) than its cousin the Green iguana, found in the lush Caribbean lowlands, but is also a target of hunting itself, not just by other animals but by people too!

We call these “garrobo” in Costa Rica and they are still hunted for their meat, even though the practice illegal.

🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎

17/05/2022

Check out this female LAVA LIZARD from the Galápagos!

🦎 🌋 🦎🌋🦎🌋🦎🌋🦎🌋🦎

One of the most abundant reptiles on the famous volcanic islands, this group is split into seven different species across their range, each with its own distinctive color pattern. Females usually have a bright red patch under the throat, and you can see males conspicuously doing push-up displays all over the islands.

🌋🦎🌋🦎🌋🦎🌋🦎🌋🦎🌋

Any idea why?? Comment with your guesses below!! ⬇️ 👇🏼⬇️👇🏼⬇️👇🏼

29/04/2022

29/03/2022

Reforestación en Monteverde 💚💚💚

08/03/2022

Happy International Women’s day, from me and this lovely Tropical rat snake(Spilotes pullatus) 💛🖤💛🖤💛🖤💛🖤💛🖤💛

As a female naturalist guide, I enjoy the thrill (and the challenge!) of actively seeking out target species….
but I also love to use humor, positivity, and a feminine sense of emotional intelligence to help people slow down in the forest, and let nature flow deep into their hearts and souls.

When you let nature come to you, the result is nothing short of magical.

What is a magical forest moment you’ve experienced recently? I’d love to hear your stories 🌱☺️🌱

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06/03/2022

Gray Hawk (Buteo plagiatus) posing so nicely along the road, had me thinking it was a Roadside Hawk!
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www.birdsbybijs.com
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BIRDS ↟ TOURS ↟ THREADS
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06/03/2022

BROAD-WINGED HAWK 😍

I’m so hard with this raptor today, let me tell you why! We have the following characteristics in common:

🦅Neotropical Migrant

A species from the U.S. that comes down to Costa Rica to spend some time…sound familiar?

🦅 High site fidelity:

Broad-winged hawks like to winter in the same spot ever year; this girl went from global globe trotter to honorary Tica 🤣I’ve been living in Monteverde, Costa Rica for 11 years and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else!!)

🦅 Juvenile

This individual’s plumage is indicative of its young age. Likewise, this girl right here never wants to grow up … you feel me?! 😄

🦅 Gregarious

These hawks flock in high numbers when they migrate- I’m talking in the hundreds of thousands! Likewise, I’m what Costa Ricans refer to as a “pelotera” - someone who likes to be surrounded by lots of other people (la pelota) ⚽️

(Of course I’m leaving out obvious things like being endothermic and having vertebrae… but you get my drift!) 😅😅😅

03/03/2022

😱 Is it Friday yet? Nope!
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It’s still Wednesday but trust me, TOUCAN DO IT!!
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Enjoy this Yellow-throated Toucan (Rhamphastos ambiguus) from Costa Rica’s Pacific lowlands.
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No feeders, no setups, just the natural world and my handheld DLSR! 🍌🤙
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Dad joke courtesy of the witty 😁
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www.birdsbybijs.com
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BIRDS ↟ TOURS ↟ THREADS
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03/03/2022

So grateful to be back in action!! Thank you for visiting Costa Rica and for spreading the love and support far and wide across this beautiful country!!

02/03/2022

“Hang in there.”
-Three-toed sloth 🦥

26/02/2022

🍊 ☺️😍🧡

🍊Elegant Euphonia (Euphonia elegantissima) are just like oranges, except they fly!
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🌅While doing some sunset birding with we had the opportunity to observe these adorable orange puff-balls settling in for the night.
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👀From a distance If I hadn’t seen them land in the tree, I really would have just thought they were little oranges!
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www.birdsbybijs.com
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BIRDS ↟ TOURS ↟ THREADS
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23/02/2022

🌳✨During our birding adventures in Carara National Park and I had the absolute pleasure of observing this gorgeous vulture land in a large tree above a river off the trail.
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👀 We were checking out a Myarchius flycatcher when the “whoosh” of wing flaps quickly directed our attention elsewhere.
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🖤⚡️🤍As we swung around, a flash of white and black perched in the tree.
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Hopping around and climbing onto an exposed branch, allowed for some wide-open views of this gorgeous King Vulture (Sarcoramphus papa)!
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Although a vast majority of King Vulture photos that come out of Costa Rica are photographed from the comfort of a hide where the odors of expired animals lure them in close, this was a totally natural experience and simply luck of the draw.
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Like I’ve said, photographing birds at feeders or from blinds is totally fun, however. I find much more joy in the spontaneity of observations as they evolve in the field.
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The last time I saw this species was soaring overhead in the Ecuadorian Amazon in 2019, so needless to say it was a exhilarating to see this bird again and so close!
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🪄🧞Wishing y’all some great moments of birding magic!
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www.birdsbybijs.com
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BIRDS ↟ TOURS ↟ THREADS
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22/02/2022

22/02/2022