I’ve seen keel-billed toucans twice in two days. These are the only times I have seen toucans in the wild here, and I think they were two different ones, because today’s looked decidedly smaller than yesterday’s. They are flighty and don’t stick around very long if I poke my head out of the casita to get a photo. They appear here during the summer months, which is why I hadn’t seen any until now.
The one yesterday stayed visible long enough to be able to catch it on film, but my smartphone didn’t kick in when I hit the record button. By the time I discovered that, it had gone deeper into the trees and wasn’t visible anymore. DRAT!
So, then I started filming a motmot and when it flew, the toucan did, too. I caught its blurry image as it sailed away over Cat’s house, but the image was just a split second long because I was filming the motmot in flight: I didn’t expect the toucan to fly out of the trees at the same time, so I wasn’t aiming the camera in the right spot to catch them both.
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Frustrating!!! But I’m sure it’ll happen sometime, now that they’ve appeared twice in two days.
I want to get a nice photo or a painting of a toucan to hang in my abode
I think they are amazing looking birds. I’d like a macaw, too. When Jon, Francisco and I go to San Jose to the artist’s colony, I’ll probably find images I love there.
Or, with any luck at all, I will take a good photo of one of these toucans, or Lisa will when she gets here, and then the images will be even more special because we captured them ourselves.
Alas, macaws don’t live here. (We’ll possibly see one at the rescue/rehab facilities we’ll be visiting. We can get pictures of them then, if so.) The two species of Costa Rican macaws live just above sea level. Scarlet Macaws are more common on the Pacific coast while Great Green Macaws favor the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. The Scarlets are my favorite.
WILDLIFE IS ABUNDANT HERE
Jon and Francisco have a family of wild agoutis on their property. Agoutis are cat-to-small-dog-sized rodents and are vegetarians. Jon says he sees them twice a day, after dawn and before dusk, so I will probably never get a chance to see them. (frowny face) I’ll ask him if he has taken any photos and if he has and will allow me to post them, I’ll do that here at a later date.
They also have a pair (or a small flock) of toucans of a different species than the one I see here. Theirs are starkly beautiful in a very different way. I may be able to see and photograph them when I dog sit one day this week. If so, I will share their images here later.
Like “my” toucans, they’ve just arrived for summer, I think. They’re the size of “my” toucans and are another of the six species of Costa Rican toucans. Jon took pix of them:
Photo courtesy of Jon Graham Mitchell
Jon and Francisco’s bird feeder attracts dozens of different species of birds and butterflies. They get some amazing photos.
SHOPPED FOR GROCERIES YESTERDAY
Yesterday I hired Marinela to take me to and from Rosvill (a Tico-owned grocery chain that was founded in Grecia) to get groceries. This morning Cat helped me erase my cache or cookies (or whatever!) so I could get the MasXMenos website working for me again. Luckily, that’s all it took. I have an order in — the one I’ve been trying to get in for a solid week. It will be delivered on Wednesday morning.
Walked 8,782 steps yesterday before I stopped counting them. I’ve walked 8,648 so far today. It’s almost noon, so I expect to add another thousand steps or so before bedtime.
Here’s an image I took today during the walk:
The term “daisy tree” in Costa Rica most commonly refers to the giant daisy tree (Podachaenium eminens). It is one of the largest plants in the daisy family and is native to the highlands of Mexico and Costa Rica, where it grows in cloud forests.
I have been videoptaping the variety of birds that moved in when summer arrived. My place is surrounded by birds and squirrels this time of year:
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PURA VIDA!!!