Quick catch-up and holiday snippet

While I was away SHELDUCK and RED KITE were reported on the patch, the Shelduck only being the second record, otherwise WOODCOCK, WATER RAILS and BRAMBLING were all still around. My first visit was last Friday (5th) and I added COOT (70) to the year list, we seem to get one or two in spring that hang around for a few weeks, they've only stayed to breed once. FIELDFARE and REDWING were still well into double figures with the odd flock of Redwing flying north.
Another couple of short walks at the weekend added the latest ever first CHIFFCHAFF (71) on Sunday 7th. Other birds included 3 COMMON BUZZARDS and 3 KESTREL, MARSH TIT, COAL TIT and a NUTHATCH carrying mud to a potential new home. Hopefully the weekend will bring a few more birds as there is another guided walk on Saturday.

Nuthatch

So to the holiday, we ended up in Costa Rica, courtesy of last years redundancy! It was a beautiful country and the people were great, we struggled a bit with typical holiday tummy stuff from day 4 which did stop us doing a couple of things but not too much. It wasn't full on birding but we added new species on every outing. We met fellow holidaymakers at each place as you do, some birders some not but all great to swap stories and experiences with.
We stayed at 6 different hotels in the 2 weeks and enjoyed the drives between each place seeing a lot of the country, great mountains, volcanoes, jungles and wetlands. I'm not going to try to list all the birds of which we managed just over 200 species but I will just mention a few, with pics of a few too.
After a night in San Jose where CLAY COLOURED ROBIN (national bird) nested in the hotel garden we headed to Sarapiqui and a small hotel that had some nice grounds which we duly explored, the highlights here where the one tree that had nesting LONG TAILED TYRANT, COLLARED ARACARI and BLACK CHEEKED WOODPECKER  and the appearance of the beautiful GREEN HONEYEATER. STRAWBERRY POISON DART FROG was something else we were really excited to see, they are tiny!!
The pics below were all taken just in the hotel garden although we did visit a local Natinal Park as well.

Rufous Tailed Hummingbird, the most common Hummer on the trip

Green Honeycreeper

Collared Aracari

Golden Hooded Tanager, another stunner just seen here and at Arenal

Passerinis Tanager, common in the north and east

Keel Billed Toucan, I'm always amazed by that beak!!

Yellow Faced Grassquit

Long Tailed Tyrants

Strawberry Poison Dart Frog, it was a bit dark so the ISO was very high for this shot as you can see.