Thursday, March 20, 2014

Back in business - sort of

Well I've been back in Ontario for a few days now so maybe it's time to make a post. I had a pretty amazing trip, and other than getting sick for a few days in Costa Rica, nothing major went wrong! I hope to do an in-depth series of posts detailing my trip (with pics, of course) over the next little while (or maybe few months), but how quickly I finish these will really depend on work. In a couple of days I am heading down to Long Point to start the field season, which in my case will last until at least December. This means I won't have a huge amount of time to work on blog posts, but I will do my best! I am currently slogging my way through a couple hundred checklists and submitting them to eBird (if you still haven't heard of it, go to ebird.org and check it out!). I've made it through the first 5 weeks of the trip in the 4 days that I've been home, so I expect I will be done in the next 2 days. In the meantime, since I won't know how many species I actually saw until that's done, here are some other trip stats:

Distance travelled: ~16 000km
By plane ~ 9050km
By car (rental) ~ 4200km
By public transit ~ 2000km
By foot ~ 650km
By boat ~ 120km

High temp: >50C humidex on a few occasions (38C without humidity) - Osa Peninsula, Juan Hombron Rd, Darien lowlands
Low temp: 7C on Cerro de la Muerte in Costa Rica (3450m elevation) - doesn't include windchill

Butterflies seen - way more than I could even begin to count, will do a post on these guys at some point.

Photos taken - >6000...I have a lot of work to do...

Ok that's enough for now, I'm sure more will pop up later on. I think I will be updating that little box in the top-right corner of the blog as I go, rather than just putting my current year total. If you really want to know how close I am to my goal of seeing 779 species this year, you can always check the Top 100 for the AOU area on eBird in a few days when I finish putting in my checklists.

Since I haven't edited any of my photos yet (other than these), here's a quiz! Leave a comment with your thoughts (don't be shy!). The first 3 photos are of a single bird, the last one is a different bird. I will even help out a bit and say these were taken in Panama.





5 comments:

Adam Timpf said...

Depending where you saw it, perhaps a female Scintillant Hummingbird. Or maybe you are fishing for some experts to proclaim it a Glow-throated?

dwaynejava said...

David, looking forward to more posts, stories and photos about your trip. I think I might plan some family trips to areas beyond Florida next year. Costa Rica perhaps?

David Bell said...

Adam: that is exactly what I'm doing - probably not identifiable though...

Dwayne: Costa Rica is very nice, slightly more expensive than Panama though both can be done relatively cheaply. Pretty much anywhere you go will have great birding but if you want sunshine plan on visiting the Pacific slope of either country!

Jacob C. Cooper said...

Looks like a great trip man! I'm excited to see all of your photos...

Anonymous said...

Hi David,
My wife and I met you at Bosque del Rio Tigre. Glad all went well in Panama. Hope you saw the harpy and lot more! Looking forward to your posts on the Darien.

------David H.