From Kaleena Smith
I just returned last week from my first ever birding trip outside of the United States. I thought I would share some of the pics from our trip. We went to Costa Rica with a birding tour and also went a couple of days early on our own to spend some time at Paraiso Quetzal. I will share in two parts because I have so many photos to go through, and l saw 197 lifers that I photographed while there (more that I missed shots of).
If anybody has questions about planning a trip there, or where we saw a specific bird, please let me know. We really only saw a small part of Costa Rica, mainly the Talamanca Highlands and Rancho Naturalista with some field trips such as to Centro Mano, El Copal and Irazu Volcano and others as well as San Jose.
It’s amazing how many birds we saw in that relatively small area.
Holy moly, that’s striking! What amazing markings.
Anon, this one should definitely go into next year’s contest.
Crested will be back again. It did very well, though not enough to get past the Snowy. It was funny as it was a first round knockout the previous year. There’s always surprises to be had in the OoTY!
Oh! I don’t remember seeing it before; maybe this is just a particularly striking picture.
I’ll keep looking for more. The Crested and Spectacled both had a burst of popularity and live in the same area, so I’ve been getting some decent pics of both.
OoTY 2025: Crested v Speccy
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The White Faced Scops people are going to have something to say about that!
I’m trying to figure out my WFS propaganda strategy for the coming year, to ensure a win this time.
It shouldn’t take much, that owl sells itself! Such a great bird!